Impressive Or What!

At an open night at the girls' school, Sam and I took advantage of seeing their work.

Amber the oldest granddaughter, showed us a lovely description she had on the wall about her self. We were quite impressed except when we came to the sentence that said, There are two things I don't like. One is my sister and the other is olives.

I spent a good while telling her how mean that sounded and also did she just think of her sister as she would a vegetable. I suppose at least she put her sister before the olive.

Millie, my youngest granddaughter, said to me, "One of the boys in our class did a very loud, long fart when we had to be quiet."

Thinking of what kind of reaction that would have caused in my rather stern schooling, I asked what happened next.

The teacher just remarked,"That was very impressive, Tommy"

I loved that answer. We would have had a very stern dressing down about manners, when I was young. Things are so much better today.

We are all trying so hard not to be too excited about a house that my son and granddaughters have put in an offer for. It is very close to where I live and someone has put in an offer for Sam's house, which is just out of Bristol and it is such a bother to get the children to school and see all their friends, not forgetting visiting Granddad and me. The deal is all in the hands of the Estate Agents and Solicitors now and is subject to contract.

With a bit of luck, they will have moved in by December. Fingers crossed it will all work out. Otherwise there will be some very disappointed people about.

I am nearing the end of my radiation treatment now and am in pain at the moment with lesions and burns. I know they will go in a few weeks, but at the moment I am moaning like Hell.

A Touchy "T"issue

Photo is copyright of Maggie May.

If you are about to have a meal or have just had one, then I suggest you come back later. If you haven't had close contact with children, then you mightn't like this post.

However, I feel this subject has to be written about.......... the very awkward subject of wiping children's bottoms.

When I worked in a Special School, this was just automatically done, alongside nappy changing and nobody thought anything about it. The children were very little and dependent and the job just had to be done. There was always somebody about, near the changing tables. Of course, that was ten years ago and things might well have changed since I left that job.

Its perfectly normal to help small grandchildren when they call out for assistance. Their little arms are just not long enough to reach their bottoms and even the nearly seven year old still calls out for assistance, usually while we are eating. Why do children always want to go right in the middle of a meal?

My son, Sam, moans to the girls, "How long do you think I am going to carry on doing this for?"

Amber replied, "Until I go away and get married."

That would make the perfect thing to say in a speech at her wedding (if there are still such things in operation, by then.)

No, I really meant that things can get tricky when you are not around and the children are at school.

Playworkers and school staff are not allowed to wipe bottoms, let alone go into the toilets, unless there is some really terrible mishap, in which case the parents are sent for.

So it is with with some apprehension that we will be sending Millie for full days in a Reception Class very soon, with no one to help her with wiping if she needs it.

As I work in an After School Club (as well as the school), I have found out from experience that some small children often smell and I don't mean because they are needy and neglected children. The vast majority come from really good homes. They smell the unmistakable stale smell of dirty bottoms that have not been wiped properly and now they have to wait a further two hours or more before they are collected and put in a probably, longed for bath or shower.

This is all because the staff are too afraid to help children with toileting, (in case their intentions are misinterpreted), and also because the Learning Support Assistants at school have busy schedules that do not allow for them to leave the children they are helping while they go to the toilets. There simply wouldn't be time, even if they were allowed to do it.

My other older grandchildren say they never do a poo in school (even though they have been wiping their own bottoms for years.) So it seems that children learn from an early age to save it for home time and that is why during meal times, there seems to be a tremendous urgency. They have held in all day.

I'd be interested to hear what other parents and grand parents (or anyone else) has to say about the children whose arms are simply not long enough to wipe a bottom successfully!

The Empty Box

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

A couple of years ago, I was stunned to receive a letter form our county council informing me that I was being awarded a substantial sum of money for long service in my place of work and that I could go to a shop and choose something to the value quoted in the letter. I could then show them the voucher and take the goods home.

Well, strike me down. All that work in the special school over the years, cleaning up sh*t and all those kids I had lifted onto changing tables at great detriment to my back, the crates of sandwich boxes that I lifted and carried.............. now being recognized. I couldn't believe it!

I read on, I couldn't have the gift in cash and I had to spend the voucher in one shop.

I gave the matter great thought and eventually decided to get something that I would never think of buying for myself. Something I would not normally be able to afford. An indulgence!

I chose a gold bracelet in two colours of gold. White gold and yellow gold, sort of entwined around each other in a kind of plait. The bracelet had a good clasp that looked secure. The bill came to just over £300, more than I would ever pay for a bracelet.

Well, I showed it off and wore it on special occasions. I kept it in its posh box that had come from a posh shop.

Last summer holiday, I was having all that worry with my sick son in law and had planned to go and see him. However it was the start of the school holiday and I decided to wear the bracelet for the duration and felt it would be safer than leaving it in the house, in case we were burgled.

The day before I was due to go away, I noticed that the bracelet had gone. To my horror, I realized that I hadn't seen it since the day I put it on. That was three weeks before! I would normally have taken it off for showers and things but because I was not used to wearing it, I'd forgotten that I'd even put it on.

I searched the whole house. I searched the garden. I tried to think what I had done that first day of the holiday. I'd gone shopping and I just hoped that it wouldn't have been found by some druggie who would sell it cheaply for his next fix, or some kids who might have just tossed it about without realizing how valuable it was. 

Then I realized there was a possibility that I had accidentally thrown it in the council garden waste bin along with all the twigs and branches that I had chopped back around that time. The thought that I had given the bracelet inadvertently back to the council was very ironic but was a distinct possibility. I could imagine some one opening a bag of compost that the council had sold to them, made with my leftovers and the look of surprise when they pulled out their bounty. It was a sickening thought.

Of course it could be nearer to home. It might be under the soil somewhere or at the bottom of my mini pond. In fact it could be anywhere. If only I knew where and when I lost it, I might have had a chance of getting it back.

I didn't even get a photo of the bracelet. All I have left is the empty box.

It has taken me all this time to blog about the loss. I was too gutted at the time it happened and had felt very sorry for myself. Everything had seemed to be going wrong in my family.

However, in the end, I began to realize that it was only a material possession and not flesh and blood. I never had the bracelet before, and I haven't got it now. I am exactly where I was before I received that letter.

The council might have reclaimed their gift through the compost or it might be on the wrist of some lucky person. I only hope that person stops to think who might have lost it, though I doubt it. They probably thought it was owned by a very rich person who didn't deserve to have it in the first place!

I keep hoping it will turn up, though I doubt it.

This story was told for Photostory Friday hosted by Cicely and MamaGeek.

With apologies for the uninteresting photo!

My Early Schooling. (Memory Lane)

"Tell tale tit,

Your tongue shall be split

And every dog near this school

Shall have a little bit."

I was standing in the playground, mortified.

It wasn't another child saying this to me. It was a teacher!

I soon learned not to tell tales.

Although I cannot remember my first day at school, I do know that it was in September of 1947.

There was no gradual transition period, where parents stayed with children until they settled in. Mums would drop their children off at school and disappear fast. That was how it was then. Normal for that time.

The school was a Mixed Infant Church of England, with the local parish church standing next to it.

It was a stone building and the playground was tarmac with small white stones embedded in it.

Schools in those days were very strict and my older cousins had warned me in advance that the Headmaster, Mr Upward, had a cane that he used.

Being an anxious child by nature, I do not think that school was ever a pleasurable experience, nor did it ever boost my confidence, rather the opposite. However one of the teachers, Mrs Boardman, was very kind to me and used to take me under her wing. She taught me how to knit and sew and I remember that she was a slightly older motherly type of person.

Although my mum must have taken me on my first day at school, I can remember that my dad used to regularly take me on his large, black bike. It had a small saddle clipped onto the cross bar in front of him and two footrests anchored onto the front wheel frame. He used to drop me off at the school gate before turning round and heading to town and then work.

One day I took my feet off the foot rests, with disastrous results. I got my legs grazed by the spokes and Dad nearly fell off his bike. He was not too pleased and I went in to school with blooded legs, using Dad's hanky to mop up the mess.

Inside the classroom there were rows of wooden desks with seats, held together by a metal frame. Children had to remain seated at all times and there was to be no talking, which was difficult for me.

If a toilet trip was needed, we had to put up our hand and ask, 'Please may I be excused?' 

The toilet block was outside the main building, in the playground and there was a short trip across the tarmac to get there. The boys' toilets were on one side and the girls' was on the other. I can remember it was very cold during the winter.

If an unfortunate child wet their pants then the poor mite would be placed in a corner of the room, facing the wall. Even though this never happened to me, I noted that everyone laughed and made fun of all who did. There were no spare pants to change into, so the child just had to dry out naturally and was shunned by others.

There were many crazes at school, depending on whether you were a boy or a girl, as in those days there was a definite distinction between the sexes regarding, hobbies and play.

The girls collected beads and used to carry them around in tins, to swop or just to look at and show them off. The glass ones were highly desirable, with plastic being the least liked.

The boys collected cigarette cards  and unusual cigarette packets, and played marbles. They were encouraged to take part in sport activities and were taught simple woodwork.

Girls, on the other hand, were taught to knit and sew and later on, to cook.

Boys played football and cricket, while girls played hopscotch and skipping in the playground.

One of the rhymes, which is politically incorrect by today's standards, that we chanted while skipping was,

"My mother told me I never should

Play with the gypsies in the wood."

I cannot remember the rest which might be just as well. I would be interested to hear the ending, though, if there is some one out there who knew it.

I work in schools and find it so hard to imagine how today's children would have coped with the harsher conditions and discipline of the era of the post war days. Children today are more confident and have so many choices about everything. Maybe though, they are not so lucky as they don't have the freedom to go out on their own, as we did then. So maybe it is a question of swings and roundabouts!

My schooling was as different as chalk is from cheese!

Life Feels Like A Storm.

I feel all my creativity has gone! I am feeling incredibly sad, although I know it will pass.

The sadness, almost despair is because my family have moved out in anger. 

I will not go into details and I am not blaming anybody, but after nearly eleven months of living in our house, it became obvious that Kaiko and I, both of us incredibly stubborn, have become constantly edgy with each other and disagreed over certain issues that couldn't be resolved.

It was not supposed to finish like this. Everyone knew they would be going eventually and this was only ever meant to be a temporary solution.

Sam owns a property in an other part of the city. He needed to sell it in order to buy a property locally so that Amber could continue attending the school where she has been really settled and popular. Millie the youngest was about to start nursery near by in Sept and her name had been on the list for a good while. But this house is not selling so they are now living in it. However Sam intends to bring the children by car every morning on his way to work, so that I could take Amber to school and Granddad could pick her up while I am at work. 

Millie is to go to a child minder on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays but on the other two days, Granddad & I will look after her between us.

I wish Kaiko and I could understand each other but I don't think she will ever want to be close to me neither has she ever been.  I like to talk things over but the Japanese do not disclose their feelings. It is impossible to know what is going on in her dark, fathomless eyes. I have tried and failed!

I don't know how practical it will be to keep Amber and Millie at the school near here and feel I we will lose touch with our little granddaughters if they start new schools.

I expect most people will think that it was an impossible situation anyway. In laws living together and some said it would only last a month! Well at least we proved them wrong about that. At least they are in the same city and not the other side of the globe.

However, I am upset at the suddenness of it all. No time to adjust.

On a practical level, I know the time will come when something happens to my computer or router that I cannot deal with. If I go away for any length of time, don't think I have abandoned you. I have not the same technical support at hand, that's all!

Sorry to go on about all this. I expect time will heal. In the mean time, please be patient with me.