It's late-ish on a Saturday evening and instead of propping up a bar somewhere, a femme fatale with nowhere to go but underneath of the nearest table, I'm fine-tuning my lesson plans.
Up till now, I've been able to teach without having to communicate much in the way of detail to my lovely colleagues.
On the whole, it's probably a safe assumption that what with Harvest Festival and Christmas plus class assemblies and summer productions filling up a lot of the year quite nicely, you can probably - without taxing your powers of imagination too much - have a fair idea of what music teachers are up to in their lessons.
But now, thanks to government regulation, that's no longer enough - especially when it comes to reception children. I have, not just to teach them, but to observe them, listen to them and write down their comments so that I can make sure that each one is developing on government lines.
I have until the end of June to confirm that each child 'moves expressively to music. When creating music he or she explores rhythm, tempo, pitch and/or duration and shows awareness of repetition and phrases in music.'
Naturally, it has nothing to say about what happens if they don't do any of these.
To make absolutely sure you understand what's required, you're given the following example as a guideline.
'Molly wants to make a sound like the rain shaker. She spends a long time dropping beans on to the drum and talks about the sounds they make as they bounce on to it.'
How long is a long time?
Am I doomed to see precious seconds, minutes, hours or even days of my ever-diminishing lifespan being frittered away while the nation's four and five year olds do me the honour of sharing their deepest throughts to the accompaniment of dried beans cascading on to drum membrane? Is it possible I might even die, drowned in a sea of pulses and post-toddler platitudes?
But I've got off lightly. Reception class teachers have to complete, apparently, well over 100 observations during the course of the year. I ask one what she thinks.
"They're leaving the procession in droves," she says.
So as I turn to a fabbo song book, I'm struck by its title:
'Alleluya - 77 songs for thinking people.'
Clearly, too many people in education have been reading the other version - for the unthinking ones.
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Government, death and the over 50s
As my daughter hits 16 this year, I’ll be hitting 50. Liberation and new adult privileges are hers for the taking. But surely that’s the case for me, too…..isn’t it?
Everywhere I look there’s a plethora of information telling me how much I stand to gain from blowing out those five decades worth of candles.
Car insurers love me. All their ads say so. At last I’m officially too mature to pack my car with friends and head off to the nearest supermarket to do wheelies in the car park.
House insurers love me. Their ads say so. Yup, at 50, I'm so streetwise that I can spot a cowboy builder by his swagger; so security conscious that I’ve had the vestibule papered in Neighbourhood Watch stickers.
I’ve even stood outside the front door and attempted to hook my own keys through the letter box the way burglars do, just to make sure I’ve stashed them a safe distance away.
And I own a carriage clock – and a vintage pack of Rizlas. Good heavens, what more can anyone want as testimony that I’m at once cool, yet sensible? Matured, in fact, into the ideal citizen.
So as I sashay, virtually speaking, on to the Over 50s section of the government’s own website, DirectGov, I’m feeling pretty confident about how the outside world views me and my fellow (though mature) coolsters?
Then I start to read and am struck by a growing sense of bewilderment. Surely this is some hideous mistake? I check again.
And, yes, it’s definitely is where the two score and ten mob come in. It’s just that our beloved government’s notion of how my post-50 life is going to be lived is distinctly at odds with mine.
Take work. I have every intention of doing some. Lots, actually – and not in noticeably different way to how I do it now. And everyone else I know feels the same, economic climate permitting.
You’d never guess it, though. Work appears to be largely off the radar of the civil service drone who put this section together, presumably on the assumption that the over 50s are doing well just to move about a bit, let alone make it into a paying job.
There are just two headings, ‘Looking for work,’ and ‘Working to suit you.’
These are followed, immediately and ominously with the third and final section, cheerily entitled ‘Losing your job’ - employers, presumably, preferring their gorgeous, pouting oldsters to work to suit them instead.
Perhaps on the assumption that readers like me will now be plunged into terminal melancholy, the website devotes what to my mind is a disproportionate amount of space to what should obviously now become my major preoccupations: illness and death.
Above all, the government is worried that I might be cold and keen that I should, above all, wrap up warm.
Cold? That’s the last thing they should worry about. After reading this, I’m boiling – with fury.
With work, health and death safely covered off, it’s time to see what the future holds as far as sex is concerned.
I turn to NHS Live Well ‘Sex as you get older’ section. Much of it appears to be penned in that intensely irritating format of rhetorical questions, beloved of beaurocrats and parents of small children (‘How dare you behave like that?’) and much loathed by everyone else, especially me.
‘Why [should over 50s] wear a condom?’ the NHS wants to ask me. Well riddle me ree to you, too. Clearly, in view of their own depressing take on the area, the answer must be, ‘So you can pretend you’re still fertile and defy your own mortality.’
Needless to say, that’s not what required. You’re never too old to outwit STDs is, of course, the correct answer. Ain’t it good to know that those dear little bacteria still love us, no matter how old we get?
‘Your sex life needn’t disappear once you hit 50,’ it adds. What’s with that ‘needn’t’ word? And, sorry, but did I say I thought it did? And as for disappearance - well, at least I can be reasonably confident that no burglar is going to hook it out of the letterbox with a fishing rod.
As far as the government’s concerned, you can forget 50 being the new 40. Instead, it appears to be the new 60 and counting (up). Fifty five is the new 70. And God forbid that I even contemplate stretching my palsied limbs in the direction of my 60th birthday cake. Try to cut it and they’ll probably arrest me for knife crime.
And as for congratulations for having hit my semi-centenary…..well, it wouldn’t surprise me to find a link to a fold-it-yourself origami coffin. But look on the bright side. At least the exercise will keep me warm.
Everywhere I look there’s a plethora of information telling me how much I stand to gain from blowing out those five decades worth of candles.
Car insurers love me. All their ads say so. At last I’m officially too mature to pack my car with friends and head off to the nearest supermarket to do wheelies in the car park.
House insurers love me. Their ads say so. Yup, at 50, I'm so streetwise that I can spot a cowboy builder by his swagger; so security conscious that I’ve had the vestibule papered in Neighbourhood Watch stickers.
I’ve even stood outside the front door and attempted to hook my own keys through the letter box the way burglars do, just to make sure I’ve stashed them a safe distance away.
And I own a carriage clock – and a vintage pack of Rizlas. Good heavens, what more can anyone want as testimony that I’m at once cool, yet sensible? Matured, in fact, into the ideal citizen.
So as I sashay, virtually speaking, on to the Over 50s section of the government’s own website, DirectGov, I’m feeling pretty confident about how the outside world views me and my fellow (though mature) coolsters?
Then I start to read and am struck by a growing sense of bewilderment. Surely this is some hideous mistake? I check again.
And, yes, it’s definitely is where the two score and ten mob come in. It’s just that our beloved government’s notion of how my post-50 life is going to be lived is distinctly at odds with mine.
Take work. I have every intention of doing some. Lots, actually – and not in noticeably different way to how I do it now. And everyone else I know feels the same, economic climate permitting.
You’d never guess it, though. Work appears to be largely off the radar of the civil service drone who put this section together, presumably on the assumption that the over 50s are doing well just to move about a bit, let alone make it into a paying job.
There are just two headings, ‘Looking for work,’ and ‘Working to suit you.’
These are followed, immediately and ominously with the third and final section, cheerily entitled ‘Losing your job’ - employers, presumably, preferring their gorgeous, pouting oldsters to work to suit them instead.
Perhaps on the assumption that readers like me will now be plunged into terminal melancholy, the website devotes what to my mind is a disproportionate amount of space to what should obviously now become my major preoccupations: illness and death.
Above all, the government is worried that I might be cold and keen that I should, above all, wrap up warm.
Cold? That’s the last thing they should worry about. After reading this, I’m boiling – with fury.
With work, health and death safely covered off, it’s time to see what the future holds as far as sex is concerned.
I turn to NHS Live Well ‘Sex as you get older’ section. Much of it appears to be penned in that intensely irritating format of rhetorical questions, beloved of beaurocrats and parents of small children (‘How dare you behave like that?’) and much loathed by everyone else, especially me.
‘Why [should over 50s] wear a condom?’ the NHS wants to ask me. Well riddle me ree to you, too. Clearly, in view of their own depressing take on the area, the answer must be, ‘So you can pretend you’re still fertile and defy your own mortality.’
Needless to say, that’s not what required. You’re never too old to outwit STDs is, of course, the correct answer. Ain’t it good to know that those dear little bacteria still love us, no matter how old we get?
‘Your sex life needn’t disappear once you hit 50,’ it adds. What’s with that ‘needn’t’ word? And, sorry, but did I say I thought it did? And as for disappearance - well, at least I can be reasonably confident that no burglar is going to hook it out of the letterbox with a fishing rod.
As far as the government’s concerned, you can forget 50 being the new 40. Instead, it appears to be the new 60 and counting (up). Fifty five is the new 70. And God forbid that I even contemplate stretching my palsied limbs in the direction of my 60th birthday cake. Try to cut it and they’ll probably arrest me for knife crime.
And as for congratulations for having hit my semi-centenary…..well, it wouldn’t surprise me to find a link to a fold-it-yourself origami coffin. But look on the bright side. At least the exercise will keep me warm.
Monday, 2 February 2009
My life in second hand quotes
Christmas:
"Watcha doing?" texts Vicky.
"Making soup for the school Advent Fair," I text back.
"C***."
"Am also weaving Xmas wreath to sell for starving children with my teeth while knitting hats for the poor with feet."
"Self-righteous c***," she texts, and refuses to speak to me at all for three days.
New Year's Eve - should old acquaintance's kids be forgot.......Oh, yes, please
"Francis and Omega Mum, could you speak to your son? He keeps asking my children why they don't know where their knobs are. It's so inappropriate."
As midnight strikes, we find ourselves hating Leo, the friend and each other in equal measure. We do not exchange New Year's Eve kisses.
Snow
"I'm the only one who hasn't turned up for work," says a stricken Francis. He has taken a break from greasing the toboggan rails to listen to stories of heroism from the colleagues who have taken four hours to get to work for the privilege of being in the office for two more before struggling home again.
News from my in-box
1. Freecycle
Wanted - bike for person. Just for going to the shops and leisurely wee cycles up the river.
"We've all had those wee cycles," observes Vicky, "and it's not a bike she should be asking for."
2. Valentine's Day Spam Honesty shock
'Just order online your ideal Valentine's day present!You falter whether you should get our replica watch for Valentine's day present and you are frightened that its material will lighten away pretty soon?'
Well, yes, since you ask. Well spotted.
"Watcha doing?" texts Vicky.
"Making soup for the school Advent Fair," I text back.
"C***."
"Am also weaving Xmas wreath to sell for starving children with my teeth while knitting hats for the poor with feet."
"Self-righteous c***," she texts, and refuses to speak to me at all for three days.
New Year's Eve - should old acquaintance's kids be forgot.......Oh, yes, please
"Francis and Omega Mum, could you speak to your son? He keeps asking my children why they don't know where their knobs are. It's so inappropriate."
As midnight strikes, we find ourselves hating Leo, the friend and each other in equal measure. We do not exchange New Year's Eve kisses.
Snow
"I'm the only one who hasn't turned up for work," says a stricken Francis. He has taken a break from greasing the toboggan rails to listen to stories of heroism from the colleagues who have taken four hours to get to work for the privilege of being in the office for two more before struggling home again.
News from my in-box
1. Freecycle
Wanted - bike for person. Just for going to the shops and leisurely wee cycles up the river.
"We've all had those wee cycles," observes Vicky, "and it's not a bike she should be asking for."
2. Valentine's Day Spam Honesty shock
'Just order online your ideal Valentine's day present!You falter whether you should get our replica watch for Valentine's day present and you are frightened that its material will lighten away pretty soon?'
Well, yes, since you ask. Well spotted.
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
A hall new experience
Every Tuesday afternoon for, oh, years now, I have arrived to teach Year 1 in the hall after lunch. The pudding is invariably jelly, the children invariably messy and health and safety rules unyielding.
This means that the floor has to remain unmopped until the cleaners arrive in the evening. Untrained operatives, like me, are banned. I assume this is because over-energic scrubbing might break through the patina of dirt and A-list germs that have lain undisturbed through the centuries and release anthrax spores and the plague back into the community.
"I don't see why the children have to sit in patches of old jelly," I say to one of the teachers, one afternoon.
"Look on the bright side," she says. "If it's really sticky they can't fidget as much."
"There must be something I could do," I say.
"Why don't you ask the catering manager if they have to have jelly on Tuesdays?"
There's another unspoken question behind this one. Suspecting it to be, "And when did you last see your lovely brain?" I disappear, leaving it forever (I hope) unanswered.
The catering manager is sporting an attractive hygiene hat in blue nylon netting. Too small to cover more than a smallish proportion of his head, it balances precariously on the crown, leaving almost all his hair free to shed dirt, shampoo droppings and small change straight into the custard. It's a mystery as to what exactly it's supposed to convey to the on-looker, apart from a profound sense of pity for the unhappy wearer.
"Do you think it might be possible for the Year 1 children not to have jelly on Tuesdays?" I ask. "It makes the floor really sticky and they have to sit there for music in the afternoon."
He gives me a long look and his face fills with sorrow.
"I just don't know," he says. "It's harder than it looks. We'll have to see how the menu goes."
He speaks in hushed tones. It's clear that to him, the menu is a sacred thing, eternal, unchanging and possibly handed down on stone tablets like the 10 commandments.
"I'm just an amateur in menu management," I say, "but wouldn't it just be a question of swapping one pudding for another?"
He opens his mouth again and I expect him to say either,
"Come midnight on the longest night, I will sacrifice the lasagne and read the runic kidney beans to see what the future holds for The Menu,"
or
"Jelly has been on the Tuesday lunch menu since 1635. We still keep the head of the last teacher who asked for its removal on show in one of the trophy cabinets,"
But he doesn't. Instead, he sucks his teeth, possibly wondering if they'd be an interesting addition to the normal condiments range, turns on his heel and disappears, to wrestle with the Mystery that is the Great Menu, a living, breathing organism with a brain of bright green jelly, whose internal construction is so complex that no mere mortal can tamper with it.
Sighing, I return to my piano and attempt to play the loud pedal. There's a loud squelching sound underfoot and a sudden burst of lime fragrance as a spatter of jelly rushes up my leg. The Menu has heard. The Menu is angry.........
This means that the floor has to remain unmopped until the cleaners arrive in the evening. Untrained operatives, like me, are banned. I assume this is because over-energic scrubbing might break through the patina of dirt and A-list germs that have lain undisturbed through the centuries and release anthrax spores and the plague back into the community.
"I don't see why the children have to sit in patches of old jelly," I say to one of the teachers, one afternoon.
"Look on the bright side," she says. "If it's really sticky they can't fidget as much."
"There must be something I could do," I say.
"Why don't you ask the catering manager if they have to have jelly on Tuesdays?"
There's another unspoken question behind this one. Suspecting it to be, "And when did you last see your lovely brain?" I disappear, leaving it forever (I hope) unanswered.
The catering manager is sporting an attractive hygiene hat in blue nylon netting. Too small to cover more than a smallish proportion of his head, it balances precariously on the crown, leaving almost all his hair free to shed dirt, shampoo droppings and small change straight into the custard. It's a mystery as to what exactly it's supposed to convey to the on-looker, apart from a profound sense of pity for the unhappy wearer.
"Do you think it might be possible for the Year 1 children not to have jelly on Tuesdays?" I ask. "It makes the floor really sticky and they have to sit there for music in the afternoon."
He gives me a long look and his face fills with sorrow.
"I just don't know," he says. "It's harder than it looks. We'll have to see how the menu goes."
He speaks in hushed tones. It's clear that to him, the menu is a sacred thing, eternal, unchanging and possibly handed down on stone tablets like the 10 commandments.
"I'm just an amateur in menu management," I say, "but wouldn't it just be a question of swapping one pudding for another?"
He opens his mouth again and I expect him to say either,
"Come midnight on the longest night, I will sacrifice the lasagne and read the runic kidney beans to see what the future holds for The Menu,"
or
"Jelly has been on the Tuesday lunch menu since 1635. We still keep the head of the last teacher who asked for its removal on show in one of the trophy cabinets,"
But he doesn't. Instead, he sucks his teeth, possibly wondering if they'd be an interesting addition to the normal condiments range, turns on his heel and disappears, to wrestle with the Mystery that is the Great Menu, a living, breathing organism with a brain of bright green jelly, whose internal construction is so complex that no mere mortal can tamper with it.
Sighing, I return to my piano and attempt to play the loud pedal. There's a loud squelching sound underfoot and a sudden burst of lime fragrance as a spatter of jelly rushes up my leg. The Menu has heard. The Menu is angry.........
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Light my piano, baby
It's Wednesday morning and Sasha is in full flow. The bell for playtime tolled long ago, but not for us, apparently.
We've had the prayer, the song, the presentation of birthday certificates and now it's time for what's laughingly known as 'the story'. Indeed, it's even promoted to the children as a desirable event, something worth several extra decibels of fake enthusiasm as the staff try to hype the unhypeable.
"Behave well," they say, "And Mrs Fear might tell you a story. If you're good."
(I read somewhere that Beyonce has an alternative name for herself - Sasha Fear - that she uses on stage to give her extra courage. It seems appropriate).
We all pray for them to be bad. Or at least, badder. They never are. Until about now, 15 minutes in, when Sasha, treating the morning as usual like an ad hoc therapy session, wanders through pretty much any topic that pops into her head. A programme she saw on TV last night; her time as an English teacher in countries with a gross national product too small to raise the tanks, armed forces and missiles necessary to resist her presence; interesting things she has seen, said and done (limitless, sadly - though by subjective definition only).
Then she sees a few children, shuffling closer to the glass window to stare at the empty climbing frames and grass with a totally understandable longing.
"It is simply not fair to expect 95 children to sit quietly and patiently during assembly when 5 other children apparently can't be bothered," she says to them.
"It is simply not fair to expect twelve members of staff to sit quietly and patiently during assembly while one teacher is allowed to monopolise the whole bloody thing," I hiss to the deputy head.
"Well, what can we do?" she hisses back.
"I've got an idea. It's risky but it just might work."
"What is it?"
"Another five minutes and I'm going to set fire to the piano."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Probably not," I say. "However, I do have a secret weapon."
Just within reach is the small electric lighter we use for the birthday candles. I pick it up and press the trigger. A small flame appears. Sasha sees it out of the corner of her eye and turns. I extinguish it.
We play this game for several minutes until she gives up, dismisses the school and everyone exits with a good deal more enthusiam than they showed coming in.
"Do you know the new head of music wants to conduct a wholesale review of the way the subject's taught?" asks Sasha, as she stalks out.
"No," I say, "But if you hum it, I'm sure I'll pick it up........"
We've had the prayer, the song, the presentation of birthday certificates and now it's time for what's laughingly known as 'the story'. Indeed, it's even promoted to the children as a desirable event, something worth several extra decibels of fake enthusiasm as the staff try to hype the unhypeable.
"Behave well," they say, "And Mrs Fear might tell you a story. If you're good."
(I read somewhere that Beyonce has an alternative name for herself - Sasha Fear - that she uses on stage to give her extra courage. It seems appropriate).
We all pray for them to be bad. Or at least, badder. They never are. Until about now, 15 minutes in, when Sasha, treating the morning as usual like an ad hoc therapy session, wanders through pretty much any topic that pops into her head. A programme she saw on TV last night; her time as an English teacher in countries with a gross national product too small to raise the tanks, armed forces and missiles necessary to resist her presence; interesting things she has seen, said and done (limitless, sadly - though by subjective definition only).
Then she sees a few children, shuffling closer to the glass window to stare at the empty climbing frames and grass with a totally understandable longing.
"It is simply not fair to expect 95 children to sit quietly and patiently during assembly when 5 other children apparently can't be bothered," she says to them.
"It is simply not fair to expect twelve members of staff to sit quietly and patiently during assembly while one teacher is allowed to monopolise the whole bloody thing," I hiss to the deputy head.
"Well, what can we do?" she hisses back.
"I've got an idea. It's risky but it just might work."
"What is it?"
"Another five minutes and I'm going to set fire to the piano."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Probably not," I say. "However, I do have a secret weapon."
Just within reach is the small electric lighter we use for the birthday candles. I pick it up and press the trigger. A small flame appears. Sasha sees it out of the corner of her eye and turns. I extinguish it.
We play this game for several minutes until she gives up, dismisses the school and everyone exits with a good deal more enthusiam than they showed coming in.
"Do you know the new head of music wants to conduct a wholesale review of the way the subject's taught?" asks Sasha, as she stalks out.
"No," I say, "But if you hum it, I'm sure I'll pick it up........"
Friday, 14 November 2008
UKfamily
As my three lovely children, relaxed husband and I carve a path with our machetes through Lala land, it's not hard to imagine why the lovely Rachael asked me to review UKFamily, a new parenting website, owned by Walt Disney. It's clearly a natural match.
Stop sniggering at the back.
Not only that, but Rachael is even offering a small payment - and asks for honesty.
Put that smile away now.
So here goes.
The one thing the UK isn't short of is websites for families. For anarchic humour, there's the Bad Mother's Club. For the reassurance that whatever experience you've had, somebody else has had it worse (or better, or in a funnier way) there's Mumsnet.
So UKfamily.co.uk is going to have to work hard, especially for a battle-scarred old witch like me.
I could have done with a user-friendly version of a mission statement. What was I supposed to get out of this? A bit of a laugh, advice, reduced entrance tickets to Euro Disney? All three?
In fairness, this site, as you'd expect, seems aimed at parents with younger children than mine whose cynicism is still at a larveal stage in their brains.
You can tell, because everyone is smiling. You can choose to click on a smiley couple, smiley baby, child or 'tween'.
Everyone is clean and lovely. I amused myself for a few minutes moving the mouse so the baby assumed giant proportions, looming over the mother - a much more accurate reflection of what it feels like, in my mind - and then realised that this was silly and immature and moved onto the advice sections.
The emphasis is on bite-sized, quick to read advice and then readers' feedback. It's good as an introduction, perhaps a little perfunctory. There are pieces from people like Linda Blair - a well regarded expert in the field.
Some of it feels a little glib. One expert believes passionately that 'relaxed, well informed parents produce happy, carefree kids.' Well, who'd a thunk it? And what happens to the unrelaxed ones, like me? Perhaps we're all doomed. Still, it's nothing a few rousing choruses of 'It's a small world after all,' won't sort out.
But it does attempt to cover the darker issues, too. Depression, tantrums. I'm heartened to read in one piece about tweens about 'the enormous physical and neuro-chemical (brain) changes that ... put your tweens under considerable stress...' until I realise that it's tween hormones under discussion, not mine.
Oh, try for yourselves. Just don't say I sent you. I've got my reputation to consider.
Can I have my money now, Rachael?
Stop sniggering at the back.
Not only that, but Rachael is even offering a small payment - and asks for honesty.
Put that smile away now.
So here goes.
The one thing the UK isn't short of is websites for families. For anarchic humour, there's the Bad Mother's Club. For the reassurance that whatever experience you've had, somebody else has had it worse (or better, or in a funnier way) there's Mumsnet.
So UKfamily.co.uk is going to have to work hard, especially for a battle-scarred old witch like me.
I could have done with a user-friendly version of a mission statement. What was I supposed to get out of this? A bit of a laugh, advice, reduced entrance tickets to Euro Disney? All three?
In fairness, this site, as you'd expect, seems aimed at parents with younger children than mine whose cynicism is still at a larveal stage in their brains.
You can tell, because everyone is smiling. You can choose to click on a smiley couple, smiley baby, child or 'tween'.
Everyone is clean and lovely. I amused myself for a few minutes moving the mouse so the baby assumed giant proportions, looming over the mother - a much more accurate reflection of what it feels like, in my mind - and then realised that this was silly and immature and moved onto the advice sections.
The emphasis is on bite-sized, quick to read advice and then readers' feedback. It's good as an introduction, perhaps a little perfunctory. There are pieces from people like Linda Blair - a well regarded expert in the field.
Some of it feels a little glib. One expert believes passionately that 'relaxed, well informed parents produce happy, carefree kids.' Well, who'd a thunk it? And what happens to the unrelaxed ones, like me? Perhaps we're all doomed. Still, it's nothing a few rousing choruses of 'It's a small world after all,' won't sort out.
But it does attempt to cover the darker issues, too. Depression, tantrums. I'm heartened to read in one piece about tweens about 'the enormous physical and neuro-chemical (brain) changes that ... put your tweens under considerable stress...' until I realise that it's tween hormones under discussion, not mine.
Oh, try for yourselves. Just don't say I sent you. I've got my reputation to consider.
Can I have my money now, Rachael?
Sardines and martyrs
"You can't go to work like that."
"I've got to," says Francis, struggling out of bed.
"Surely they can function without you, especially when you're being sick every 20 minutes."
"Ten minutes, now," he says. "'scuse me." He marches, rather hastily, off in the direction of the loo.
"Why does Daddy have to go to the office when he's ill?" asks Deborah.
"He's a martyr to his job," I say.
"What's a martyr?"
"Somebody who suffers greatly, often for a cause they believe in," I say.
"Do sardines count as a cause?" says Beth, who has wandered in and is now leaning against one of the kitchen units, looking on while I unpack the dishwasher.
"In Daddy's case, I think so," I say. "And WHY AREN'T YOU HELPING ME? WHY AM I DOING ALL THIS ON MY OWN AGAIN. YOU'RE NEARLY FIFTEEN!"
Such is the volume of my screaming that the cat and dog both fight to be the first to exit through the pet flap. There's the crack of glasses fracturing in the cupboards while, outside, ancient trees crash to the ground. In the distance, I think I can hear a plane's engines cut out and restart again.
"Why are you so cross?" says Beth. "You know I never notice things that need doing so if you want help you'll have to remind me. I keep telling you but you just don't listen."
She saunters over to the dishwasher and from the assorted plates, pans, crockery removes a very small teaspoon. Holding this carefully between the ends of two just nail polished fingers, she takes it over to the cutlery drawer and puts it in.
Francis, still white about the gills, reappears.
"What's all the shouting?" he says. "It's not going to help Leo's behaviour at school?"
I take a deep breath.
"IT'S BETH!" I shout just as Beth, equally loudly yells, "MUM JUST - "
"Must go," says Francis. "I'd have a nice cup of tea."
"If you're really throwing up every ten minutes I calculate it's going to take you six hours to get to work," I say.
"Better get going then," says Francis and leaves.
"I've got to," says Francis, struggling out of bed.
"Surely they can function without you, especially when you're being sick every 20 minutes."
"Ten minutes, now," he says. "'scuse me." He marches, rather hastily, off in the direction of the loo.
"Why does Daddy have to go to the office when he's ill?" asks Deborah.
"He's a martyr to his job," I say.
"What's a martyr?"
"Somebody who suffers greatly, often for a cause they believe in," I say.
"Do sardines count as a cause?" says Beth, who has wandered in and is now leaning against one of the kitchen units, looking on while I unpack the dishwasher.
"In Daddy's case, I think so," I say. "And WHY AREN'T YOU HELPING ME? WHY AM I DOING ALL THIS ON MY OWN AGAIN. YOU'RE NEARLY FIFTEEN!"
Such is the volume of my screaming that the cat and dog both fight to be the first to exit through the pet flap. There's the crack of glasses fracturing in the cupboards while, outside, ancient trees crash to the ground. In the distance, I think I can hear a plane's engines cut out and restart again.
"Why are you so cross?" says Beth. "You know I never notice things that need doing so if you want help you'll have to remind me. I keep telling you but you just don't listen."
She saunters over to the dishwasher and from the assorted plates, pans, crockery removes a very small teaspoon. Holding this carefully between the ends of two just nail polished fingers, she takes it over to the cutlery drawer and puts it in.
Francis, still white about the gills, reappears.
"What's all the shouting?" he says. "It's not going to help Leo's behaviour at school?"
I take a deep breath.
"IT'S BETH!" I shout just as Beth, equally loudly yells, "MUM JUST - "
"Must go," says Francis. "I'd have a nice cup of tea."
"If you're really throwing up every ten minutes I calculate it's going to take you six hours to get to work," I say.
"Better get going then," says Francis and leaves.
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