Léon is a fascinating soul

Léon has been fascinated by all things foreign since before I can remember. His ear for phonetics in Danish and French have always been surprising even before he couldn't read or write. He would point out nuances of sounds that even I found barely perceptible.

He has also always been drawn to languages he doesn't understand. He loved the sound of Italian the first time we visited Thomas's parents in Italy and was desperate to learn what the villagers were saying.

This last week has taken that to a new level. Thomas's friend Kakha was here visiting from Georgia. Eighty percent of the conversation for the week took place in Norwegian, with about ten in English and ten in Georgian for good measure.

One evening I came in to find Léon sitting contentedly at the dining table taking everything in. He was then able to explain to me in great detail the ways in which Norwegian distorted the Danish words he was used to and how he could then guess from context what the words that differed in Norwegian must mean. Given his knowledge of Danish is much more spoken than written, drawing the parallels between the two languages is harder than it would be if you were a fluent reader of Danish so I have to say I was impressed. But not only impressed with his understanding, also by the look of contentment such an exercise gave him.

He just loved having someone so exotic to brighten up his mundane Scottish winter. It's been such a long time since anyone has stayed that he was becoming quite fed up and this has definitely perked him up. He's too sociable a wee guy to make do with just his six cohabitants!

His reaction to a week of Norwegian reminded me of the time, as a child, I found a bottle of shampoo in a campsite shower. Its label was written in Dutch. I sneaked back to my tent with it hidden in my jacket as if it was a precious treasure. I was drawn to the exotic too as a small child. I remember reading and rereading it trying to make out what meant what. I couldn't have been more than nine or ten.

I definitely think Léon is a chip off the old block, though he is growing up in an international enough house to hopefully satisfy some of his curiosity. When Kakha left, Léon was very sad. If he could have his way, he'd have a different foreign-speaking guest stay with us every other week.

I must try to find out if there are any lucrative niches for linguists before he gets to uni age - because I'm not sure he'll want to become Complexli's third member of staff one day!

A man thing

It must be a man thing... that need they have to take you through their sporting exploits...

Dad used to come in here two or three times a week and he'd start 'I was playing with Stevie today - hit the ball 300 yards at least but it veered off to the left... I won four and three' (or was it three and four...?) On and on I'd be given a blow by blow description of each match. The problem was I didn't stop and ask what it meant the first few times and by a few years in it was a bit embarrassing to do so, so I am not sure I ever fully understood what he was on about.

Marcel has started it too recently. His year has started arranging football matches against the 6th years after school on Fridays. He comes in a takes Lots and I through every minute of the match - who marked who, who missed a shot and with which foot, the final score, the angle his shot entered the goal and which corner - yawn, yaaawwwn!

I am so pleased I seem to have married a man who feels no such need!

Inspiration

"Music is god. In difficult times you feel it, especially when you are suffering."



Now there's one religion you could get me to follow. 

I defy you not to find inspiration in this ten minute clip of Alice Herz Sommer.

Multilingual leanings

It is interesting that of all the different versions of this song available on the internet, this is Amaia's favourite version... Looks like she'll be doomed like her parents!

I don't understand helicopters

We call them helicopter parents - Danes have a similarly appropriate term - 'curlingforældre' (curling parents) - both images are equally colourful. But I don't understand them.

I got to thinking about it again last week. Marcel spent a couple of hours on Thursday filling in a visa application form with the Indian Consulate for his trip this summer. He happened to mention the next day at school what a bugger it had been and the few classmates he spoke to all replied with 'oh my mum did that for me'! Maybe I'm a tough-love parent but this wee guy is going to be 17 on his birthday. He is potentially going to leave home and go out in the big bad world as soon as next summer and so are his friends and yet their parents still are not forcing them to step up to the mark. I have friends who still drive their children everywhere, cook for them without any reciprocal expectations, wash and iron all their clothes and make the phonecalls that need making. Marcel works in the corner shop from 5am on weekends - just him and his boss and he says parents often come in asking for newspaper delivery jobs for their kids, they even ask for references for their kids who have worked there as paperboys and girls in the past! His boss has a blanket rule - if the kid doesn't ask, the kid doesn't get.

I know from a friend who works in uni admissions that nothing is more off-putting than a parent phoning up to ask why their child hasn't got into medical school, instead of the child (who is an adult, of course) ringing on their own behalf.

In my humble opinion, given you can't go off to uni, or wherever, with them, your most important job as a parent has to be to prepare them for independence and self-sufficiency, however much our natural instinct is to make their lives easier. It's time more of us ditched the cotton wool.

How do you see your career?

I remember being 16. Don't sound so surprised! ;-)

I had just sat my Highers (university entrance exams). As the youngest in my school year I felt too young to go off to university but had secured several unconditional places so opted for a language degree at Glasgow in 1985. I was very proud as this was back in the day when very few people went on to university, and there were very few universities. I was particularly pleased as no one in my family had gone before me. It wasn't that we weren't intelligent; people of my parents' background simply weren't expected to go to university back in the 60s.

So off I went and I had a vague notion of how I expected my future to pan out. I was due to graduate with honours in 1990. With the European borders coming down in 1992, I was told the world (or at least Europe, would be my oyster). I learned two extra languages (Italian and Swedish) at uni to increase my options and figured that with those and French and German I could work in EU, or EEC as it was, maybe in translating or interpreting or simply work in business, in international exports or the likes. As a fall back I could even consider teaching if nothing else came off.

So the borders came down but the promised jobs never materialised, until I was offered a job in Bilingual Publishing. That suited me as language was still my passion. I started that at 23, six years after I had started my university course. Over the years many female graduates came and went, usually disappearing when they started a family. I also wanted kids but left that till I was 30 as I didn't want my degree to have been in vain. When I was 30 and Marcel was 6 months old, I returned to my full time job in Publishing. Private nursery cost me 35% of my salary but it was a specialised job so I didn't want to give it up for fear of not being able to find another once Marcel started school - the only other employers in that field in the UK back then were in Edinburgh or Oxford.

When I had Charlotte at 32 (in 2000), my childcare costs went up to 68% of my income. Once I added on the cost of my petrol to get to work I was working for less than £1 an hour but still I thought it better not to give up the day job. As a compromise I dropped to working 25 hours a week because it kept the job open but seemed somehow less pointless. So the country lost a third of my tax revenue and I worked for next to nothing.

I couldn't have any more kids if I wanted my job as the childcare costs for three would have been more than 100% of my income so I had no more till the two oldest were both at school. Around me both at work and at the school gate about 80% of women, all with honours degrees or similar, were giving up to be stay-home mums, going part time to keep their job open or simply muddling through freelance, if what they did suited working from home. Working freelance of course meant your income varied and therefore your ability to get a mortgage, car loan or similar varied equally. I would say most of the women I knew were struggling almost solely because of childcare costs.

I finally gave in and went freelance in 2008 when Anna was due to start nursery. Marcel and Charlotte were at school so I only had nursery costs for two, like most people, but salaries had stagnated and nursery fees had increased by 5%+ every year. I would actually have had to pay to carry on working with Léon and Anna at nursery.

Today when I stand at the school gate most women are not in full time employment. I know part-time and stay-at-home mums who have dentistry degrees, law degrees, science degrees, who are qualified teachers, who've worked in private industry as company directors. Isn't that a loss to the economy and a waste of their abilities? Did I see myself struggling freelance to pay a mortgage at 46 when I was 16? No, because no one had told me childcare here costs ten times as much as it does in other European countries.

Unless childcare is overhauled, there will be no way to add it into the equation once students loans are added, because I didn't have one of those to contend with. So my kids will have to decide between education and a family. Only one outcome in September is promising to address this issue.

As far as I can see every 16 old girl who votes no in September should be aware that in doing so they are condemning themselves to a twenty year career struggle followed by a twenty year catch-up. I know what I'd be advising Charlotte if she was 18 months older.

Happy Glasgow

 Now the Happy song has been done with a Glasgow slant :-) It's particularly pleasing to see the students 'conga'ing through the cloisters of my old Alma Mater - it brings back wonderful memories of some of the happiest days of my youth!

Scots

We got the Gruffalo years ago, probably when Léon was wee and had always enjoyed it. But we'd never bought The Gruffalo's Child, I'm not sure why... Then, because Thomas has been studying Scots, the kids decided to buy him The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Wean in Scots for Xmas. The Gruffalo in Scots was sweet enough but because we know the original off by heart, the effect wasn't quite the same, but The Gruffalo's Wean was a bit of a wake-up moment for me. Here's a excerpt:

...The Gruffalo's wean felt gallus and bauld,
Sae she tippy-taed oot intae the cauld,
It snawed and it blawed, and it didnae cease nane.
Intae the widd gaed the Gruffalo's wean...

"Haud on!" said the moose.
"Afore ye dine, I think ye should meet a freend o mine...
 The fit prints led tae the Gruffalo's lair,
 Whaur the Gruffalo's wean wis gallus nae mair,
The Gruffalo's wean wisnae hauf sae bored...

As Thomas read it out, I didn't have the original to draw on. It suddenly struck me that this was more or less the language of my childhood. My grandfather actually spoke like this, my father used some of the words but I only have Scots as a passive language... why was that? If everyone around me was speaking, to some degree, like this, why do I only speak English? I was taught, both overtly and insidiously as a child that Scots was a second class language. It was fine for Robert Burns to write like that 200 years ago but if I was to write like that I would somehow be demonstrating a lack of education. I would be speaking in an unacceptable (to my educators) way. The enormity of this linguistic cleansing I had been subjected to as a child hit me, angered me and saddened me all in one moment. How dare I be told that the way normal Scots people spoke was second class! The language with its onomatopoeic words and its differing syntax is rich and somehow comforting to me. Hearing 'hoolet' instead of 'owl' made me smile. When he read 'freend' with its silent 'd' I heard it in Gramps' voice, not Thomas's because he talked about 'freends' all the time. There are so many words that have already been lost to my children. They have no idea where the press is in their house, where their oxter is or what is expected of them if they are asked to synd the dishes.

It is nice to see Scots finally being given respect in our schools and nurseries but I feel somehow cheated.

Divorce and politics - an anecdote

I've been wondering why the Scottish independence referendum has been annoying me increasingly over the last few months to the point that when I hear it mentioned on the news or similar, I turn off.

It isn't the I am not interested. I am passionately interested. It is plain to see that England, first under Labour and now under the ConDems, has no idea whatsoever what to do to start moving in the right direction. Their Education system has been priced out of realistic people's grasp, and not in line with the rest of the European continent that it is part of. Their Health service is failing miserably. The infrastructure is collapsing around them, they have youth unemployment but are trying to force pensioners into working till way beyond the age when people (in my family at least) tend to die. They are hysterical about immigration, even when fears are not realized. Childcare is so beyond people's reach that many women (even with degree-level education and beyond) are no longer able to go out to work - salaries just don't meet the costs. Some stay home and decimate their careers, others choose to have no children, many rely on aging parents who suddenly find themselves incapacitated and then they're faced with losing their home because their mortgage was based on granny childminding.. Many, like me, try to work half-time (plus a little) from home, staying up till the wee small hours to make ends meet, working all weekends and holidays but that isn't the way forward in the 21st century.

Sure enough London seems to be working reasonably well, a little part of the South East too but Birmingham up is quite frankly in a state! I want my kids to live in a fairer, more progressive country so it is incomprehensible to me after reading the figures (as quoted in the FT and even occasionally the Economist), reading independent GDP projections and reports on other small countries that are working much better, reading the White Paper and its far-reaching ideas that anyone would vote to sink with the ship that is floundering on the Somerset plains. Now this is nothing anti-English - many of my English friends who live here are also Yes supporters, quite frankly I think Northern England needs it as much as we do, they simply aren't being given the option and I am not willing to join them in a suicide pact when I can start to build a future they can hopefully draw example from.

Anyway, back to why the Indy Ref is annoying me. It suddenly hit me, while listening to Osborne's speech this morning... It is because of my divorce. I didn't just go through a divorce eight years ago, I went through the most acrimonious divorce that any one I know has gone through. That is not what I intended but it is what transpired. I don't usually talk about my real, innermost private life on this blog but let's discard that rule just for once and let me take you through my divorce blow by blow. There is enough distance between me and it now for this to be possible without it being overly upsetting...

So let's go back to five or six years before I left my first husband. We had grown apart. We were coexisting but didn't have much in common. I saw my future differently from where he saw it but I wasn't the divorcing type so I sat him down and told him we had to start having more time for each other, sharing parenting more and moving in the same direction. I said I wanted a little more respect and a bit more affection. He barked at me that by living in my 'shitty country' he was showing me enough affection so I'd to leave him in peace and not nag him again.

After that spectacular fail at repairing our relationship things carried on as before with me working full time, parenting full time and doing everything in the house while he worked long hours and de-stressed by treating himself to café trips, cinema trips and piles of rental videos of his choice. When I had finally had enough, I told him I wanted to leave and he came out with a phrase I will take with me to my grave: 'I didn't need to make an effort because you were never going to leave.' Of all the lessons from my divorce that one line has possibly shaped the way I have lived my life afterwards most. So does that attitude ring any distant bells? Anyway, for my marriage it was too late. I didn't love him any more.

His first reaction after I announced I was leaving was to declare his undying love for me and try to show me the affection I had craved for the previous decade. I was appalled and repulsed. I didn't want him to go anywhere near me, let alone hold my hand.

After a few weeks of 'I love you', he moved on to undermining me. I was never going to survive on my own, I was too dependent, I was too used to his salary, I was pathetic. Too wee, too poor? Any bells?

Next I was told he'd go to court and have my children taken off me because I was a hopeless parent and he was a victim of my mid-life crisis so he would obviously be favoured by a judge. The thought of him trying to take my kids terrified me. That kept me voting 'No' to leaving for a another few weeks. Slowly, I started to realize that I was the only constant in their lives so it was another lie - a bluff.

Then he tried bribery. He'd never bought me any jewellery and had always spent most of his money on things for himself so he told me that if I promised to stay I could have a diamond ring and a brand new seven-seater car. I guess this was his version of further devolved powers. Firstly, I wasn't as shallow as that, but moreover, I was slowly beginning to realize that I'd rather have neither than stay with him.

When that blackmail tactic didn't work he tried threatening to leave his job, so I would get no maintenance, this was followed by threats that I would have destroyed his career by leaving and he'd be destitute and it'd all be my doing. Of course later this all culminated in threats of self harm. I worried for another few weeks until again it started to dawn... all bluster and bullying. Yes, they worked for a little while but eventually I realized they were all time-buying bluffs.

He became quite verbally abusive for some time after that but that didn't wear me down, it strengthened my resolve greatly. Finally I got the threat that he would not give up the house. He wouldn't sell me his half so I'd lose my home. I guess this is the parallel of the current currency issue.

But the problem was that by that point starting again from scratch with less money, somewhere else, was still preferable to giving in to his bully tactics because we had gone way beyond the point of repair and more importantly I had started to believe in myself and see my route out. I'd seen what my future could hold and contemplated that other world.

Of course, he promised me the earth if I stayed but I knew realistically that once I opted to stay he wouldn't change, he'd be no more loving or supportive than before and worse still he'd spend the rest of my life casting the almost-divorce up to me, taking more and more to compensate himself for the hurt he perceived. Life after a 'No' vote to divorce would have been an utter nightmare.

So on balance, I think the reason I'm turning off to the Indy Ref is because it is way too close to the bone. The parallels are so strong, I am finding them upsetting. I've been through lies and bullying once and that is enough for one life time. Watching interview after interview on the BBC where Westminster politicians are allowed to lie or embellish the truth without being picked up by the interviewer just gets me down. I have read enough foreign and independent sources to notice the bullying lies and half truths. The fact that someone less well informed will be sitting there falling for their sound bites frustrates and scares me immeasurably.

I am starting to suspect that this divorce is becoming more acrimonious by the day and even if we do return a No, I sense we will have gone beyond the point of repair.

Léon and hailstones

The kids were out in the hail yesterday. I think this photo I took caught not only the size and ferocity of the stones but also the enjoyment the wee ones derived from a short burst of fun weather instead of the incessant rain we've had to put up with this winter.

A parenting failure!

Ok, so I'm not going to win mother of the year for this one...

Usually I try to prepare my kids for the real world: when they bring down their washing, they are expected to put it on, they make their own lunches, they iron all their own clothes, they cook, set tables, wash dishes and all the rest... So when Marcel sheepishly ran in at 10:50 one Sunday evening, saying he had an exam the next morning but had forgotten to wash his school shirts, I thought I'd cut him some slack and volunteer. I don't need to go to bed as early as he does, because I don't work at 6am like he does. So I put it on, realizing that it would be ready for the tumble drier around midnight. What could I do till midnight? Well, the kids had left Despicable Me 2 lying out and we hadn't seen it. So Thomas and I stuck it on, not a kid in sight, and enjoyed the little yellow minions' antics... in fact we enjoyed them so much, we forgot all about the washing and went off to bed and the first we knew about the wet shirt was Marcel, standing in the doorway of our bedroom ten minutes before his school bus with a mix of panic and disappointment on his face. Oops! (Nine minutes of ironing is almost enough to get a shirt dry, we found).

(And did we admit to having been watching Despicable me? Did we hell! We'd been distracted by an interesting documentary, of course ;-) )

Trying to see things through a child's eyes...

I turn 46 tomorrow. This comes as quite a surprise to me as I still feel about 23. Looking in the mirror sometimes shocks me as I don't recognize the face that is staring back. How did so much of my life pass by while I was too busy to notice? It may sound strange but occasionally I do find myself taken aback when Marcel, or even Charlotte, calls me mum. I don't feel it is wrong with the little three: I subconsciously feel old enough to be their mum I guess, but Marcel in particular makes me stop and wonder sometimes. He's six foot tall, has a deep voice and shaves every day! Maybe because I find my life pre-Marcel hard to remember, as if he and I originate around the same time, almost as two halves of the one self, I feel the face that greets me in the mirror ought to be similar in age to his! (No such luck!)

Anyway this started out with a conversation I had today with Anna.

Anna: Today in the playground I was talking to Euan and Rebecca about our mums.
Me: What about?
Anna: Well Euan said he thought his mummy was about 36 or 37. Rebecca said hers was 44 so I just told them that made me the winner because mine was already 45 and turning 46 tomorrow no less - they were all jealous that you won!

Maybe the key to happiness is seeing ageing as a wonderful achievement as you do at six rather than what it feels like at this age: hurtling ever faster towards oblivion...

Before and after

After three years and four months Marcel is finally free of his braces. He had many issues to correct - a bad underbite and four teeth too many to fit in his mouth (that had grown in on the inside of his other teeth) but thanks to George the wonder-orthodontist we got there in the end. I've lost count of the number of hours I've spent in the orthodontist's waiting room over the years but when he had then taken off today, it was lovely to see him skip and dance the full length of the hall on his way out!

One child down, who knows how many still to go (one and counting, for now...)

Cinema trip - a wonderful gift

We got a wonderful Xmas gift this year from Thomas's parents: a family visit to the cinema. As I have moaned before, when there are seven of you in a family a trip to the cinema is beyond your budget. Of course we can nip out to the odd Saturday morning budget rerun of an old film to get the cinema experience if we need to, but seeing something that is current, and that all the kids' classmates are still talking about, at the same time as everyone else has long been beyond our reach. And of course, when something finally does come out on DVD and our kids finally start talking about it, their friends can barely remember the film ours are enthralled by. It happened with Monsters Uni and with Despicable Me 2 this year, and countless others before them.

So this Xmas, we got tickets to see Frozen in the the cinema! All seven of us went, though I am sure Marcel isn't owning up to it too loudly! It was lovely to see Amaia's face. She'd never been in a cinema before and Anna, who had been once before had no recollection either. The four younger ones have been dancing about singing the soundtrack ever since and because it is something they rarely get to do, it will be remembered fondly, long after all the toys have been lost or broken. It was definitely a hit way to make a memorable impression.

To a family who spend a lot of time on a shoestring making their own entertainment, maybe gifting them an outing or an experience is a positive way forward. Maybe I should start asking for such gifts for Thomas and I too on birthdays as we never get out!

Why I love being a mum

So I'd dropped three and four at school this morning and was quietly proceeding to nursery with five as usual. (One and two get a bus). I was listening to Chris Evans on radio 2 as I usually do on the school run. Suddenly Amaia, who was sitting in the front beside me put on her puzzled face and asked:
'Where is he?'
'Who?' I asked, wondering if she meant Léon or someone else.
'That man,' she said gesturing towards the dashboard. 'The man who's in there every morning talking away. Is he actually in there somewhere?'
So there you have it - Chris Evans is a tiny little man who broadcasts every morning from inside the dashboard of my Peugeot 308!
So sweet!

Being four

It's funny what you remember. One of my first memories is also of being four.

Around my fourth birthday we went to visit my great granny. I remember her as a bothersome old biddy who smelled bad and intimidated everyone. An unwritten family rule was that no matter what she gave you for a birthday or Xmas had to be praised as your favourite gift and shown off proudly to all around. On my fourth birthday she handed me a card. I can still see it today - average in size with two cute pandas on the front and at the top a large purple '3'! I was insulted as only a four year old can be when handed a three-card. I refused to thank the old bat and I made a secret vow to myself to hate her till her dying day! She lived another ten years and I never felt any fondness for the woman again!

Never cross a four year old!

Another of those memorable conversations of childhood

Anna started back at Sunbeams last night. Girls from four to six gathered round and the adult leader, Amy, came in and asked about their Xmas break.
Anna skipped out: Amy asked if we got something nice from Santa so I just said yes. With a wink she carried on: You said I had to play along with people who believe in Santa so it doesn't spoil their Xmas and I could see Amy didn't realize there was no Santa so I didn't disappoint her mum!

So sweet...

Amaia told me today she loves her badge because it says 'Amaia 4'! She's getting good at recognizing the letters, she's just not quite pinned down the number of each to expect!

Anna's shopping list

Awwwh - isn't it awfully cute when wee kids notice you've run out of something and take the initiative to put it on the shopping list themselves!? These little gems become fewer and fewer as children grow so I'm trying to save them for posterity. Sweet Anna.

Proud to be Scottish!

This collection of photos made me smile today!

A change of perspective

At the Science Centre, a photo by viralbus on Flickr.

It is strange how perspective can change things. Thomas said something to me around new year that blew me away. He mentioned that Léon and Anna were now the age Marcel and Charlotte had been when we got together. When Thomas and I became a couple I would have described my family as comprising of two fairly big, mature and quite independent kids and a baby. Now I have a son who'll be 17 on his birthday, and a daughter who is 14, if you asked me to describe Léon and Anna I'd probably say they were still very small children, very much in need of my care and guidance in all things. It is very difficult to see each of your children in isolation and to remember what they were like at specific points in their past. The trick is to analyse the stage they are at without placing too much emphasis on their position relative to other family members and that is not simple. I hope I won't turn into one of these parents who keeps the youngest home even at 15 'because she is the baby'!

Dieting aid

Anyone who grew up in the 70s will probably be able to relate to this type of food. I've definitely seen its likes on buffet tables at dos back then - along with the little cocktail sticks with a lump of cheese and a piece of pineapple, if my memory serves me correctly! I think it'll come in helpful to anyone contemplating a post-xmas diet. One look at these and suddenly ryvita seems unimaginably appetizing. What was it with aspic? Yeuch.

Chili sauce

I don't think of myself as overly wussy on the chili front. I happily use a good number of them in a meal and have even been known to eat the odd Scotch bonnet raw, so a couple of months ago when we saw this little jar in See Woo, it was an obvious choice. The first time we tried it we added a teaspoonful to our meals. They were bin cases. So we tried less and less. Firstly, the actual pieces of chili and seeds are way beyond edible. So I decided to test the oil it is sitting in. Three drips on my plate of chili con carne this evening was pleasant, five was borderline and by six I had to dilute the whole thing with another spoonful of rice. I am slowly beginning to conclude that this small jar of chili sauce that cost less than £2 might actually be enough to last the rest of my life. Truly fascinating.

Frozen

I have to say: these photos  (and these and these) are just incredible.

Here's a further batch.

Rain

Can you insure your kids against rain?

This bloody climate is starting to get costly. Despite putting her calculator inside its plastic case, inside her Maths folder, inside her 'water-resistant' school bag, it got so wet yesterday that it's a bin case. This wouldn't offend me terribly if it was a one-off but it's the second time in a month. I'm thinking of buying my kids one of those water-tight barrels you can hire for your camera when canoeing - just so they can get to and from the bus in the morning. If I get one as big as the one in this old photo, they can put their school bags in it and roll it to the bus stop in the morning!

Have I mentioned I hate this climate?

Back to being drones

I know it isn't a very British attitude but one of the things that makes me sad at the end of the Xmas school holiday is that first morning when I see them all in their uniforms ready for school. We live in a dark and dismal grey country with constant rain. It is mid-winter and yet we insist on dressing little kids in dull blacks, whites and greys. It seems so perverse. When left to their own devices Charlotte usually wears tight jeans (often in  neon colours) and a baggy but bright jumper, Marcel prefers his polo shirt and jeans, Anna wants anything sparkly, Léon is going through his snowman jumper phase and Amaia is coming up with quirky combos such as jumpers with bright summer dresses on top. Over and above that they all have nice jackets - Léon's is a bright rust colour, Anna's stripy neon colours, Charlotte's is red and furry, Amaia's purple, only Marcel's is navy but instead all these cheery things have to be closeted away in favour of two navy school jackets and two black blazers that are not fit for the climate so are invariably worn with a hoody underneath and a cagoule on top. And don't even get me started on ties... no one in industry wears a tie any more so why are six year old girls forced into them? I want my kids to express their personality through their clothes - not lose their personality conforming to a dreary, meaningless dress code that belongs more in 1914. I know they supposedly look smarter, but kids aren't meant to be smart, they are meant to be comfortable, or wacky or messy or whatever suits them. Basically they are individuals and I hate the way the uniform robs them of their individuality. Guessing my pupils' personalities from their clothing was one of the things I loved most about teaching in France.

Ok, first (but not last) rant of 2014 over...

Amaia's hamster coat

There I was in Asda yesterday, not really looking at the sales, more looking for Charlotte's birthday dinner when I spied a pink fake fur coat reduced to a fiver from £16 or £18. I thought it would be nice for Amaia in the spring or autumn so took one.
I hadn't actually noticed it had ears. Given it feels like Rosie and has ears Amaia is now convinced she is a hamster.
Anyway it's definitely gone down well. I found her wearing it cooking, with an apron on on top. And everyone who's dropped by has been given a fashion show immediately on arrival.
I think if they had had it in a bigger size, I know two other girls who'd have bagged one too.

Charlotte

In ten minutes my first baby girl turns 14. And the strangest thing is that she feels younger in some ways now, than she did two birthdays ago... or maybe just lighter, breezier, more confident in herself. She doesn't need to hide behind the pretence she did then...

When she turned 12 she still had a relationship with her father. Or more strictly, he still had partial custody of her, despite their not actually having a relationship... At the time, unknown to me, her twice monthly weekends with him were a constant battle ground.

He was always the type of person who expected to be pacified by all those around him. Anyone who has lived with him knows that tiptoeing around him is the only way to have any semblance of peace. His mother knows it, I know it, Marcel knows it. The problem was that from the outset Charlotte was never a tiptoer. When she thought he was treating her unjustly, she took him on by telling him so, and the net result was many a weekend spent crying in her room after being screamed at. Worse still for her, she was denied access to her precious little sisters, who have taught her to be a happy child again.

The Charlotte who turned 12 two years ago was withdrawn and quiet and would never have been caught singing along to the soundtrack of Frozen, in a carefree manner, as I have found her doing almost every day since we took her to see it last week. Princess musicalswere not her thing back then. Of course, she's 'only singing it, and watching clips to make Amaia happy' -- (so I'm told!)

She is an absolute delight. She's patient and funny, nurturing and loving. I think, perhaps unlike someone whose life has always been easy and happy, she appreciates everything about her new life. She's such a family person, constantly baking with her babies, Amaia in particular. She's spent the holidays teaching Léon to play Minecraft, watching movies with Anna and disappearing for hours with Amaia just for some sister time. Even with Marcel, she doesn't have the normal grumpy teenage sibling relationship. I occasionally catch them deep in conversation, much like two much older friends. I am so proud of what my little girl had the courage to do in 2012 and how she alone created this family by standing up to the bullying and no longer allowing it to control her life or the life of her two siblings. My only regret is that none of this came out until after she had taken on the task of fixing it herself.

I now have a daughter called Buchanan whose Pumpa would have been so proud of her.

Ne'erday hamster

I know dogs are often distressed by fireworks but does anyone have any experience of hamsters being freaked out by them?

I've checked with the only other hamster owner I know and she doesn't seem to believe me! Both on November 5th and yesterday at the bells Rosie started running up and down her cage like a mad thing. She doesn't seem upset, more excited like a five year old at her first firework display. She doesn't bite either which suggests she's not scared. The only time she usually bites is when she's harassed.

So I can only conclude my hamster is actually a firework fan!

Alcoholic custard

So I went ahead with my plan to bring in the new year with Advocaat snowballs. Thomas, too, had grandmotherly memories of Advoccat. Like me he thought of it as a somewhat unpleasant, old-lady drink but when I opened it, he decided to try a sip straight. I expected him to find it repulsive but was more than surprised when he started skipping round the living room hooting 'It's just alcoholic custard!' Twenty-five hours later we're half a bottle down and I've only had two glasses! 

I'm sure it's just a phase! If not I'm sending Siobhan a bill.

1985 and 2013

        

So, what do these two photos have in common?

Yes, they are both of me... on the left I am 17, on the right I am 45...

I've always been a wanderer. Itchy feet... my dad would say. I like to travel, I like to move abroad and back, I even like to move house every few years whenever I can!

2013 hasn't been the best year from that perspective... every time my kids were off school, I had too much work on to take a holiday and the consequence has been that for the very first time since the first photo was taken here, I have been nowhere. I have not been abroad, I have spent every single night in my own bed - no sleepovers, no nights away, no holidays - how thoroughly depressing. Life's too short to spend an entire year looking out of the same window (at the same rain).

I can't really see how 2014 will be any better either but one thing I can definitely predict is that my feet will become itchier and itchier!

Advocaat

As a child, we spent Hogmanay at my granny's house. I've mentioned the format before. But the one thing I didn't go into was the alcoholic content. Gramps used to drink a little too much (and sing about belonging to Glasgow) and consequently Granny didn't. She certainly didn't believe children should be given alcohol either so every year she'd take out (presumably the same) bottle of Advocaat that she'd bought years before for all the non-drinkers. I think she thought it was liquidized egg, that's what she told me anyway... I doubt she'd ever read it closely enough to see it contained 18% alcohol. She certainly used to present it to me as the non-alcoholic option - a bit like shloer only yellow (and dare I say bloody awful).

Even as a young child of eight or nine, however, I was drawn to all things exotic and this putrid alcohol contained two 'a's side by side and the word 'Dutch' on the label and to me that meant foreign, exciting, and making myself like it became a goal in itself. I'd nurse a glass of the viscous liquid all night willing it to taste better because I was desperate to escape into some dream of foreign wonder. But after my gran died, I gave in and accepted Advocaat wasn't my tall, dark foreign, stranger (I opted to marry several foreign men instead!)

Nearly thirty years have passed since I last tasted Advocaat and then my friend Siobhan asked me last Saturday if I'd like a glass. Straight, it was exactly as I remembered it, in all its vileness... But then she asked if I was insane drinking it neat, she filled my glass with Mexican lime juice and lemonade and presented me with my first taste of a Snowball and I am more than gobsmacked to say, not only did it inspire me to buy my first bottle of Advocaat since I came of age, but I also intend to ring in the bells this year, for the first time since 1983 with a glass of Advocaat in my hand!

Cheers!

Biryani

This popped up from my favourite little happy chef on Boxing day. I must work my way through this list as biryani is my favourite food! (And if you don't follow Sanjay on Facebook, I recommend you should - it is impossible to watch him without ending up with a huge smile on your face - he's such an enthusiastic, happy guy!)

You you've been in publishing too long when...

you have this type of conversation with your eight year old...

I was in Tesco on Xmas eve and I decided to have a quick look to see if they had a specific novel for Charlotte's birthday (a week after Xmas). The problem was that I was already stressed enough and couldn't remember which novel it was she'd been going on about. Worse still Léon hadn't finished his shopping and was rabbiting on in my ear about what to get Lots for Xmas.

Me: Léon can you shoosh a minute, I'm trying to find Lots a book and I can't remember what it's called.
Léon: What's its name and I'll help you look.
Me: I can't remember, that's the problem.
Léon: What colour is the cover.
Me: Blue I think, dark blue.
Léon (very loudly in the crowd of shoppers) And what font is the title in on the cover??

Boy, did we get some funny looks. Don't all eight year olds ask that? ;-)

I like her logic

Boxing day, 8:09pm, in complete seriousness...

Amaia: Mummy! I've got an idea!
Me: What?
Amaia: Well, I quite liked Christmas so maybe we can do it again tomorrow?!

Chancer!

3 year old logic

Amaia: "Is it a nursery day today?"
Me: "No you're on holiday"
Amaia: "Oh goody, when are we going on the aeroplane?"
Hmmmmmmmm.

Lockerbie

I've never written about Lockerbie but I guess my kids probably want to know how I experienced that just as they asked me once to write down my experience of 9/11.

It was Christmas of 1988 and I was spending it alone in Besançon with my then boyfriend, André. He had decided he didn't fancy a family Christmas so had claimed to his mother that he had too much work to come home for the festive season. I was studying for some uni exams so was home alone in the flat while he was in the office. André and his mother, Annie, had always been afraid of flying, terrified planes weren't safe so every time anything happened to one they dissected the accident in every detail. I was pottering about when the phone rang. I lifted the receiver and said 'allô?' Annie sounded terribly distressed and said just one word 'Dumfries' in a her strong German accent. I didn't catch what she meant. I was, of course, assuming she was speaking either French or German to me (as she had no English at all) but she repeated the word 'Dumfries' over and over, half panicking, half crying. She hung up, I turned on the news and was surprised to hear TF1 discussing Lockerbie. These days Lockerbie would probably have meant very little to me as I fly everywhere but 1988 was pre-RYANAIR so as a student I couldn't afford to fly. I used to go by Eurolines coach to France all the time and the last night stop before Glasgow was Lockerbie, so I'd passed through often.

Over the next few days accidents were ruled out and terrorism in but it was more a news story than anything else... a news story about my country, but not really something tangible. Of course I calculated quickly how few more minutes the plane would have needed to fly to hit greater Glasgow and that was quite terrifying. I watched and felt the world had changed a little, for the worse.

A week later I was coming home. I had a seat by the window on the coach and was staring out at the world as it changed from France, to England, from London to countryside and finally across the border. Thirty-five hours into my trip the bare, treeless hills loomed up covered in sheep - finally I was nearly home. I had crossed the border into Scotland. No one had prepared me for what I was about to see and I cannot begin to imagine what it had looked like a week earlier. Very suddenly, without warning a deep lozenge-shaped pit, we've all seen the photo, was just there beside the road, the houses looked as if I was in a war zone, smoke was still rising from the plane-shaped pit. (The third photo shows the road our bus drove along). The bus passengers gasped but didn't speak. It was so close to me I could almost touch it. The bus was made to slow down and file past the hole by police, who seemed to be everywhere. News suddenly became reality. That day the horror of what had happened finally hit me and still today I can see it, smell it as if it was twenty-five years ago. I lost a bit of my youth and innocence that day.

To this day I cannot imagine why it came as such a surprise to me. I knew my bus went through Lockerbie and I had seen the photos on TV in France. Why was I so unprepared? It just didn't seem real till then. I still can't look at that specific photo without feeling that sharp intake of breath that had hit me back in December of 1988.

10 mins old

Surreal conversation of the morning:
Amaia: Who's that baby?
Me: You.
Amaia: What number was I when I was born?
Me: What?
Amaia: Was I 3?
Me: No, you were zero.
Amaia: Ok. And was I a boy or a girl when I was a baby?!
Me: A girl.
Amaia: Well I don't look like a girl!

Why we find even Italy expensive...

I came across this map the other day and it started to explain something I had been wondering ever since we started visiting Thomas's parents both in Denmark and then latterly in Italy...

I know Danes earn much more than we do so it was never a great surprise that the Danish supermarkets felt a bit pricey on my meagre UK income. But we have all known since the 80s and early 90s that Italy was a great cheap destination for Brits and Danes alike. I still remember lira notes that were worth less than 50p when I lived in Perugia in the 80s. So finding this helped me finally understand that although Italy might feel like a delight to my Danish relatives, to us poor UK earners it is no longer the financial paradise of my youth!

I am always amazed how expensive I feel visiting Tuscany is. The petrol is dearer, the food shopping feels extortionate. I rarely find a full trolley in Tesco, Silverburn costs me more than £120, whereas Coop in Bibbiena can easily fit £200 + in a smaller trolley. But if you look at the price level indices above, it can be explained in several ways. Italy's average is 111, but of course Tuscany is one of Italy's most affluent areas, so to reach a national average of 111, I guess Tuscany must be well in excess of that, at least in the 120-140 bracket. The UK's average is 104, but London is our affluent area and is drastically more expensive than Glasgow so for the UK as a whole to be 104, Glasgow must be in the 80-100 bracket or even lower. 

On top of that we, as a family have two other major issues. Given there are seven of us, we rarely shop for our main items in Tesco or ASDA, we bulk buy our meat, cheese, stock, coffee, butter, rice, pasta, mayonnaise etc in Makro, so get them all at trade prices. In Italy we can't bulk buy anything as we don't have the storage facilities to do so, so things cost almost double in real terms. 

Finally, and perhaps sadly most significantly, we are self-employed, and that means we have no paid holidays. So where most people relax with their feet up earning their annual, well-deserved break, we see every day of every holiday (here or abroad) as a huge financial loss which is unfortunately not offset by a decrease in mortgage, and other living costs during this period. In the old days, freelance staff could command a salary of 20% more to offset this, but those days are now gone. We're more likely to be given a paycut as an incentive to get work than a pay increase.  With little visibility too, a holiday can only be booked at the last minute, making it almost impossible to coordinate. If things don't improve, I find it hard to imagine our kids seeing much of the world, or even the Scottish coast. It is hard to believe that just eight years ago flying to New York for a long weekend was a normal thing for me to do!

Having checked out the map above, it looks to me like we are going to have to beg all our family and friends abroad to consider annual meet-ups in the likes of Poland in future unless something happens to improve either our earnings, or our unpaid holiday status.

And while I'm ranting anyway

I know I don't usually moan about living in this affluent area - we moved here for the schools and ours has just come in the top three in Scotland again so it is all worth it, but you know what really pisses me off here...?

I've long since given up trying to compete with the kids' classmates presents. This year's norm seems to be a new games console - either the new PS4 or the Wii something or other, of course with that you need a game or two of course, and a few lego figures, maybe an iPad to go...

Unfortunately two self-employed people, five kids and an awol ex don't really qualify for that lifestyle so we make Christmas about family and making biscuits together, reading together, hugging in front of a movie and so on. Gifts don't need to cost much, it's the thought that counts... But when you've bought each of your kids (as their main present, not their stocking filler) a DVD of a recent movie, for the very reason that you couldn't contemplate the £50 it would have cost to see when it came out a few months ago in the cinema, then it really seriously pisses you off that on the last day of school, their classmates (who've simply received the DVD as a normal every day request from Asda as soon as it came out) bring it in for last day of term entertainment. Suddenly two of my kids' major surprises for next week have just been shown to them today because everyone's already seen that of course... Except they bloody haven't!

Ok, rant over - I'm just feeling a bit sorry for my babies! Just as well kids don't mind seeing DVDs more than once.

Next year I'll keep them home on the last day so they can get their Christmas movie as a surprise rather than just a re-run :-(

Wishing me a stressful Christmas?

Is December 20th the hardest day of the year for those of us who are self-employed?

I remember well my years employed in other people's companies. By December 15th, you were starting to wind down, you'd the office party to look forward to, and projects to dust off... In publishing there were many projects passing for press up to Christmas Eve. You'd often spend that afternoon eating mince pies, and chatting getting ready for a very well-deserved holiday and if you were lucky the boss would let you away half an hour early. Working in a multinational department, you'd spent the couple of weeks before that waving off friends who were flying home to France, Spain, Greece, Germany or wherever for the holidays. You felt their anticipation and the atmosphere was great, if manic.

Something you don't think enough about before you opt to freelance, or run your own business is the truly hideous concept of 'unpaid holidays'. It is not that I don't need a holiday. I have worked almost every day since February, including most weekend days, so I bloody need a holiday. But as I watch my dozens of facebook friends today at their office parties, their drinks session or count down to the long drive home, no one seems to have a depressing status saying something along the lines of: No chance of any freelance work for the next two weeks, everyone's on paid leave, so trying to make ends meet in the most expensive month of the year with half my normal monthly income. I guess that just wouldn't be in the Christmas spirit. And of course, the knock-on effect of that is that you are half a month down on salary when you start 2014 so you spend it playing catch-up from day one! Stress! At least during summer there's still hope, but please excuse me if I find Christmas a tad more stressful than I used to...

New boiler

When we moved into this house six years ago there was a fairly inadequate heating system. It always seemed very much as if someone had installed a boiler and then added the two extensions, thus doubling the size of the house, and halving the efficiency of the heating.

Over the last nine months the radiators have got colder and colder so we finally decided to replace the boiler. The new one was installed on Tuesday. We wondered if it would be noticeably better but within ten minutes of it being switched on it was obviously better. Improvements include actually needing to put cold water in the bath when you run it - that's not been necessary for years. The radiators are almost burning to the touch too, instead of just seemingly being filled with tepid water.

But I'll give Rosie the last word. Has it passed the hamster test? For the eight months Rosie has lived with us she has buried herself at the bottom of a sawdust tunnel every time she has fancied a sleep. But since Wednesday morning - well she's taken to sleeping on top of her sawdust. I assume it is a bit like when I sleep under a duvet in Scotland but swap it for a light sheet on a Mediterranean holiday!

Thumbs up for the new boiler!

A worry

I love the way small children's minds work sometimes...

Léon knows there's no Santa. We have always done 'European Xmas' in this house - presents on the night of the 24th from relatives so Santa doesn't come during the night.

Now he's in primary 4, a good number of the kids are now also in the know. To be honest, thinking back to when the other two were that small, I am very surprised anyone still believes at that age, but there you go...

So today we were driving to school when Léon got into a tizzy. I asked what was worrying him and he said that it had just occurred to him that some parents might never actually get round to telling their kids about the Santa myth and what would happen to their kids in turn if they didn't realize there was no Santa, because that would result in no one bringing them any presents!

I did try to explain there's usually quite a gap between believing in Santa and becoming a parent - well in this particular suburb of Glasgow anyway!

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day from Amaia (3): My sister has long, long, long hair but my daddy, he's just got pricks on his head!

Amaia

From the minute I worked out Amaia's due date back at Easter 2009 I knew this day would come.

This morning the nursery issued us with the form offering us an extra year because sending her to school next summer would make her one of the youngest in her year.

The way the Scottish education system works is as follows: let's take next summer's intake as an example. All children who will turn 5 between 1/3/14 and 28/2/15 should start school in the August of 2014. Children whose 5th birthdays fall between 1/1/15 and 28/2/15 are offered an automatic right to defer school entrance so as to become the oldest starters of the summer of 2015, rather than the youngest of 2014, if their parents so desire.

We didn't have this issue with Anna two years ago as she missed the deferral cut-off by 12 days. So she went to school at the age of four and is more than coping psychologically, socially and academically. She's an outgoing, confident little girl and doesn't let her age stand in her way. Still I wish she could have been older when she went. Amaia is a quieter one though. She's more introvert, less self-assured. She very much reminds me of her sister Charlotte who I deferred back in 2004. At the time those who had chosen not to defer often commented that their child was clever enough to start at 4. I learned to let that wash over me because I wasn't deferring Lots for academic reasons - she already wrote all her own Christmas cards at the age of three and could quickly calculate but she didn't like stepping onto the stage and singing, in the playground she was not confident enough to seek out friends and often sat quietly hoping they would come to her. At the time I thought Charlotte would benefit hugely from not having to be the baby of the class over and above being quiet and introvert. I also reasoned that the highest achievers of our European neighbours are not those who start at 4 but rather those who start at 6 or even 7. I was also pushed in that direction by having been a February baby myself, in the days before deferral was introduced. I had all my vaccinations a year later than my classmates, I sat my uni entrance exams at 16, I couldn't go to university social events till six months after I started as I was just 17. I was sent to teach in France at 19, just a year older than the students. All in all I had a huge chip on my shoulder about being the youngest at school. Of course, it didn't affect me academically but I still lacked confidence because of it and didn't fully come out of my shell till long after my teens. Of course as deferral didn't exist back then, I did not hold any grudge against my parents at least!

As time has gone by I have found further benefits to having deferred Charlotte. As far as I can see 15 is the new 17. Marcel and his classmates were exposed to drink, drugs, sex and peer pressure by about third year at high school. By deferring her, she is now hitting that age more able to cope with it from a maturity perspective, and furthermore, with no chip on her shoulder and nothing to prove.

When I knew this decision was coming I, of course, discussed it at length with Thomas but I also discussed it separately with both Marcel and Lots herself to get their input. Marcel immediately suggested we defer so she had nothing to prove. The older ones in my year tend to lead, the younger ones prefer to follow, he advised. I asked Charlotte if she felt any regrets given one downside was that she had been first in her year to reach puberty and was not comfortable with that at all at the time. To my surprise she actually said that she'd have found coping with puberty even harder if she'd had all the hang-ups about age too. She thanked me openly for making what she decided was the right decision for her. As she pointed out, she has to choose the subjects she's taking on to 4th year in just eight weeks - she'd have felt even less ready to do that a year ago than she does now.

As I said, with some kids, especially the socially extrovert, calm ones who are very much at ease with themselves, it might not be wrong to send them but I think both Lots and Amaia have the type of personality that definitely won't have anything to lose by being a little older when they have to make life's more important decisions. Even Léon, who turned 5 after the first 2 months of p1 would have coped better emotionally, had he been able to start a year later. He was so young at first that although he was as bright as a button, he just wasn't all that interested in formal learning when he could have been charging round the playground in a dinosaur costume! I really don't think we'll hear any complaints. I'm 12 years into schooling from a parental perspective and have yet to meet anyone who has told me they wish they hadn't deferred their child. The same is not true of the opposite. Given I work from home and am therefore not financially constrained to send her to school, although it would of course make my life logistically much easier, I cannot justify to myself not offering her an extra year of childhood before formal education starts to take her from us. So we signed the paperwork today, to keep our little girl another year. Five and a half is a better age...

Toy hamster

Thomas doesn't buy the kids an advent calendar, he makes up 24 little gifts of his own, wrapped in napkins every year. Some days they get sweets, others, toys. Yesterday Anna and Amaia each received a toy hamster.

Mid-morning, I went to the loo and found someone had put quite a lot of paper, which looked unused, into it. I also noticed there was no loo roll on the holder. I then walked into the living room in time to see Amaia making her toy hamster (which has a ball underneath) roll back and forwards through an empty toilet roll tube middle. I think she remembers how Rosie used to do this as a baby so acquired one for 'Butter Cheeks' her own way!

Schneck

In the part of France I (used to) come from, these are not 'pains aux raisins', as they are everywhere else, they are 'Schneck' (not Schnecken, I hasten to add - that wouldn't be good Frallemand!)

So with that backdrop in mind, we had this cute conversation in the car yesterday. Marcel came in from school with a letter inviting all the advanced Higher French class pupils to a frogs' legs and snails lunch in Glasgow for Xmas. He remembered tasting frogs' legs in Paris when he was eight, but was unsure as to whether he'd ever had snails. Lots remembered the same from when she was six. Léon asked if he had tasted frogs' legs then too. As he was about six months old at the time, I was sure he hadn't and pointed that out. 'Oh but I've definitely had snails, though' he replied. That would surprise me but he did go to France a few times to see his grandmother after I split up with he who shall not be named, so maybe he was right. I asked what he'd had them with, expecting the answer 'garlic' so was gobsmacked when he came back with 'croissants and pains au chocolat!' I guess, despite not being much of a German speaker he understood the word 'Schneck' after all!

I might add when I explained I actually meant the slugs with shells, he was somewhat dubious as to their edible quality!

That wonderful way only little people can sleep...

I have photos of all of them doing that at some stage in early childhood - it is so sweet. And once they are fully grown like Charlotte and Marcel, through my photos I can look back and cherish the toddlers they once were.

Nelson Mandela

"...But Gregory escorted her around the door and before either of us knew it, we were in the same room and in each other's arms. I kissed and held my wife for the first time in all these many years. It was a moment I had dreamed about a thousand times. It was as I were still dreaming. I held her to me for what seemed like an eternity. We were still an silent except for the sound of our hearts. I did not want to let go of her at all, but I broke free and embraced my daughter and then took her child into my lap. It had been twenty-one years since I had even touched my wife's hand."

I was was about 26 when I read A Long Walk to Freedom. At 26 I could not begin to imagine being deprived of human touch and tenderness for 21 years. I think the simplicity with which he wrote that phrase blew me away and it was the first line I remembered nearly twenty years on when news of his death broke last night.

Over and above that, I don't think there's much I can humbly add to what has already been said today, except to mention my pride as a Glaswegian in the little part we played, renaming the address of the South African consulate to Nelson Mandela Place, long before that was the accepted thing to do, our awarding him the Freedom of our city and my own university's election of his then wife as rector, to put pressure on their regime.

Nursery update

Hazeldene came very close to having to change its motif this morning...

Hazeldene has always used the tree across from its main building as its emblem. This morning, after the chaos at the primary, I checked carefully that neither the Hazeldene tree, nor the other large tree to its left was moving before parking there for five minutes and dropping Amaia off at 9am. At 12 when Thomas and I went to pick her up however we were shocked to see the morning's events.

Nursery is now closed until this can be removed from the parking area. But it seems no one was hurt in the chaos despite it happening when nursery was open and full of kids.

Looks like the council made more than one bad call this morning.