YOU can tell it’s getting towards the end of term in our house when the sewing kit comes out. I say ‘sewing kit,’ but I actually mean a reel of black cotton with a needle stuck in it. We might also have a spool of white, somewhere. Despite being descended from good Northern stock for whom sewing and knitting seems am effortless joy, I’m not one of life’s darners. However, when you have three sons who play football on Tarmac playgrounds, and school trousers cost around £14 a pop for the older boys, it can get expensive. First it’s the hems that go, usually in the first couple of months. I sew them up, usually too tightly, giving a slightly ruched look. Then it’s the knees. I’m not great at patching worn holes, but I can handle a clean tear. And I even sewed myself a pouch on a string to hold my stupid new mobile phone for when I don’t have pockets. Usually, you have to buy a few ‘official’ items like sweatshirts, blazers and sports kit from the school, and then can buy generic trousers, shirts, polos, dresses, skirts and shoes. Back in September, our eldest, Jed, was given his blazer, tank-top, tie and sports kit as part of the deal to turn his school into an academy. The blazer seemed big on him then, and I hoped it would last a couple of years. But already the sleeves have started to look too short. He’s on his second pair of shoes (third if you count the black trainers he borrowed from his brother to tide him over until the Easter holidays). He came home last week with a massive tear in the backside of his only school trousers (two pairs bought, one lost). “I was playing football at break and I stuck my leg out too far. It was embarrassing, as a load of girls were standing behind me, if that’s any consolation” Two days later Dougie, whose official uniform cost £100 back in September, rang me after school. “Can you pick me up? I’ve got a big hole in my trousers. I’ve had to put my sports shorts on underneath.” Yes, he too was playing football at breaktime. The elder boys’ trousers were split on the seam, so were easy enough to sew up. Double stitched. Not neat, but hopefully strong enough to last them for the last few weeks before summer. As I was sorting the washing at the weekend, I found Billy’s school trousers. They have a hole in the knee. Probably from football. I’m not good with holes. I’m sure he won’t mind doing the last half term in shorts. . ?
Lee Evans to perform in Northampton in June. Tickets go on sale today.
One of Britain’s best-loved and biggest comedy stars, Lee Evans will be performing at Royal & Derngate in June as a warm up to his forthcoming arena tour.
Tickets for his gig, on Thursday June 30 , go on sale at 10am today, initially only to members of the theatre’s Friends scheme. Booking will open to the general public from Friday June 3.
Ex-boxer Lee Evans, whose previous 2008 tour Big was the UK’s biggest ever solo live comedy gig, will be performing from notes trying out new material for his record-breaking Roadrunner tour which will see him perform 50 nights in the biggest venues around. This will be a fantastic
opportunity for Northampton audiences to see this comic genius at work up close before he sets out on tour.
Tickets are expected to sell quickly and priority booking will be given to members of Royal & Derngate’s Friends scheme (previously called enjoy) until Friday June 3. Anyone joining the Friends scheme during the priority booking period will be eligible to book tickets for Lee Evans at the same time.
Friends can enjoy advance email notification of shows going on sale, ticket discounts, priority allocation of tickets, no postage fees and a host of other rewards, from £30. Tickets range from a minimum of £1 off to £5 off per ticket and 2 for 1 offers, varying from show to show. For full details or to join call Royal & Derngate Box Office on 01604 624811.
Tickets for Lee Evans’ ‘warm up’ gig on Thursday 30 June, 8pm, are priced £28.50 (£27.50 for Friends). Members of the Friends scheme can book by phone on 01604 624811 or in person from Tuesday May 31 to Thursday June 2, from 10am to 8pm.
General booking opens from 10am on Friday June 3, by phone, in person or online at http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk.
Filed under Random
Nothing like a new phone to make you feel old
STILL on the subject of technology, there’s nothing like a Smartphone to remind a parent how fast the grave approaches.
Bloke and I have both recently had our end-of-contract mobile upgrades. While Bloke spent the best part of a fortnight like a besotted teen, gazing dreamily into the huge screen of his huge new phone, I was ready to stamp on mine after a few hours.
Forget downloading apps and posting to Twitter. Trying to transfer my numbers from my old phone to my new one seemed as impossible as trying to extract wind from a newborn. I stomped off to bed, vowing to return it (the phone) to the shop the following day.
The next morning the tech-savvy males of the household had successfully transferred the numbers, backed-up everything to my computer and even defeated a couple of levels of Angry Birds for me. And Dougie worked out within a few seconds how to lock the damn thing, a feat that I’d failed to complete even with the manual to hand.
I handed my old phone on to Son 1, who has been enduring the teen shame of a three-year-old mobile because he lost his new one weeks after his birthday and we wouldn’t buy him a new one. To rub salt into my ageing, Luddite wounds, he managed to set it up to do things I didn’t discover it could do in two years of ownership. It even looks better, and costs him less than it did me. I feel ancient.
Filed under Parenting
Taming the tiger
ONE of the most common sources of tellings-off in our house involve computer games. (I think pant and sock retrieval from bedroom floors probably ranks marginally higher).
Our kids have an Xbox and were given a Kinect, which allows you to jump about hands-free in front of the telly, for Christmas.
They aren’t allowed to play computer games at all during the week, so at weekends it’s a bit of a scramble to see who can get gaming first.
There’s also the issue of the games being played on the Family Telly in the front room, as we won’t let them have a TV in their bedroom, which according to our eldest sons, makes us some kind of medieval puritans.
There are rules about the Xbox, mostly to do with taking turns, not letting the on-screen fighting displace to the real-world of the living room and playing age-appropriate games when the smaller siblings are around.
While seven-year-old Billy will usually fight his corner quite well to get his hands on the controller now and then (or threaten to tell Mum), Bonnie is really rather left out. Most times I’ll arrive just in time to see her balancing precariously on-top of the back of the sofa trying to get one of her goggle-eyed, game-hypnotised brothers to pay her some attention.
We bought a game when the Kinect came out specifically for Bonnie and Billy, the impossible-for-a-three-year-old-to-pronounce Kinectimals. This features a band of apparently orphaned and abandoned tiger/lion cubs living it up on a desert island.
Naturally, as it was expensive, Bonnie wasn’t that interested, especially as the Kinect machine thingy didn’t seem to be able to ‘see’ her properly, presumably because she’s little. Her Kinect image always looked like it was kneeling.
This weekend, out of the blue, she decided that she wanted to play “tigers,” much to the disgust of her brothers who would be content to spend an entire weekend shooting aliens and zombies.
This time she seemed to get it. She taught her cub how to copy her, doing spins, star-jumps (she’s still very uncoordinated) and how to lie down with her ‘paws’ in the air. It was hilarious to watch.
She particularly enjoyed endlessly, repetitively kicking a beach-ball back and forth with her cub, and shooting it with a virtual water-pistol. She was frustrated by the fact her brothers had to ‘help’ when the machine wanted the ‘player’ to read instructions, or hold their hand still in a specific place to make the game progress.
Still, she was determined to keep playing, and eventually we had to remind her that she too had to play by the rules and let her brothers have a go. “I not sharing,” she announced. “Boys not share theirs.”
She still needs some more training in gaming etiquette. . .
Filed under Parenting
Who’d have thought, I feel sorry for Posh
BIZARRE as it sounds, I feel some sympathy for Victoria Beckham. It’s bad enough having to endure pregnancy, but having to endure it in the full glare of a worldwide media spotlight is another thing entirely.
True, she’s got millions in the bank from parading the family brand about for many years, but she hasn’t just had her mates and family asking “aww, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a girl?” she’s had the entire planet going on about it.
I hope all turns out well when she has what everyone assumes is a daughter in July.
But I can’t help but secretly hope her little girl turns out to be an insect-collecting tomboy who refuses to wear dresses.
Filed under Parenting
Chelsea Flower Show: Monday is mental, advice for visitors
Just got back from Press Day at Chelsea Flower Show. How lucky. Tiptoeing through the tulips (that hadn’t gone over in the heat) was a delight this year.
If you are planning a visit this week, there’s a few things you should know. First, if you haven’t got a ticket, tough. It’s sold out.
Cleve West on his Daily Telegraph Garden. Hotly tipped for Best in Show, so my sources tell me
Second, it’s not like it looks on the telly. The gardens are smaller than they look and the site is enormous. It takes an entire day or more to see everything, and that’s when there’s
Laurent-Perrier Garden by Luciano Giubbilei – Nature & Human Intervention
only a few hundred hacks, snappers and celebrities in your way. ‘Public’ days are heaving, and you just won’t see it all. However, you should try to see everything possible, including the tiny gardens in the woods and the entire floral pavilion.
Get there as early as you possibly can and leave as late as you dare.
Again, don’t think just because you see ladies in floaty dresses and strappy stilettos on the TV that you can do the same. These are ladies who arrive by chauffeur-driven car or, at a push, a cab. They teeter about for a bit and get collected at the gate. Monday is mental. It’s so far removed from reality that it gives a completely different view of the rest of Chelsea week.
Most normal visitors will be carrying bags, traipsing from Sloane Square tube and back (about a ten minute walk) and circling endlessly around the site. It’s sweaty and exhausting. Wear a rucksack. Bring a wheely bag if you have a bad back. Pack drinks.
I’d start with the Main Avenue gardens and work around the outside of the pavilion. Then have a break before doing either the floral indoors or the gardens in the woods. Leave the shopping avenue until the end, so you have less to cart about, but don’t forget to leave time as there are loads of goodies (should have bought those gloves. . .)
Work out where the loos and food stops are on your map in advance when planning your route. There will be queues. Also make sure you know your train times. I left the site late, spent £20 on a cab which missed the turning for Euston and I missed my train by one minute, leading to a delay that meant someone else had to retrieve my offspring. Again.
I’ll have to come back and properly upload and caption some of the photos in the morning because I have to lie down and sleep. Happy Chelsea everyone!
Cancer Research/Robert Myers
Filed under Gardening
JLS, Chelsea Pensioners and smartphone issues: just keep posting til phone runs out
Nice chat with Jo Whiley and mum Christine about naughty daughters and watched JLS flower arranging for The One Show. Only at Chelsea eh?
Adventures with smartphone at Chelsea flower show
This is supposed to make life easier, but I’m low on battery so this maybe my only live post
Filed under Gardening
Bonnie’s besotted by baby (but she’s not getting one)
A MONTH or so ago, Bonnie and I went for a picnic in the park with my heavily pregnant pal, the local newspaper snapper Louise Smith.
Three-year-old Bonnie spent a lot of time trying to work out in her head whether it was really possible for a baby to be inside the massive bump of a tummy that Louise was lugging about. For a few days afterwards, she kept asking if the baby was “out-yet?”
Once newborn Baby Lydia was, indeed, ‘out,’ and the new parents had settled into the reality of post-labour-sleep-deprived-neurotic-hell, we went to visit.
And instantly, Bonnie was besotted. Two-week old Lydia was the same size as her own dolly ‘babies’ but unlike them, she did stuff.
She moved. She gripped Bonnie’s finger in her own tiny fist. She stared at Bonnie and Bonnie stared back, with an enormous grin on her face.
Bonnie tried to ‘dolly’ her. She brought jumpers and blankets, tried to cover her up in layer after layer as fast as Louise and I could remove them. She asked Lydia questions in a sing-song-talking-to-baby voice and once she’d established that Lydia wasn’t going to talk back, chatted away as she did to her dollies.
I eventually prised her away, and in the car on the way home, she announced: “I want a baby,” a statement that I’m sure has terrified generations of mothers.
I explained that she would have to wait until she was a grown-up lady before she could have a baby of her own (while secretly hoping it would be at least 20-odd years before I had to deal with that particular milestone).
The following day she changed tack: “I want a sister.”
No darling, that’s definitely one wish that I won’t be indulging. Four of you is quite enough. Now, where’s that dolly of yours . . ?
When it comes to GCSE exams I’m a dunce
WE had parents’ evening last week for our eldest, currently attending the most recently re-named, re-headed and re-uniformed state secondary school in Northampton.
I’m sure the teachers hate it, but I quite like the old-style, formal face-to-face with all his subject teachers. (Tough luck teachers, this is revenge for your massively-longer-than-us paid-holidays).
We did, however, find ourselves utterly baffled by various references to exams. You might imagine that exams are a long way off for our Year 8, 13-year-old son. After all, don’t GCSEs happen at 16, at the end of Year 11?
Aren’t trillions of kids sitting their GCSEs right at this moment, probably scared out of their wits by the exams they’ve been shepherded into for the last five years?
It appears not. We were baffled by references to half-credits, exams being taken at 14 and 15, short-courses, double-awards, assessment units, higher and foundation grades, weighting and frameworks. I went home and tried to look it all up to try to understand.
I’m still baffled.
The Government’s direct.gov website was no help. It read like spewed gobbledegook, and had links to the National Curriculum website, (www.more. gobbledygook.gov.uk).
I know I sound old, but what happened to doing all your exams at 16 in one hideously hot, stressful summer, in subjects that you chose at 14?
According to direct.gov, in one of its more lucid sections: “GCSEs are available in more than 40 academic and nine ‘applied’ subjects. The applied subjects are related to a broad area of work, such as engineering or tourism, and many are double the size of traditional GCSEs.
“You can also take many GCSEs as short courses. These are equivalent to half a full GCSE, so can be taken in half the time. However, if you learn more slowly than others, you can spread a short course out over the same length as a traditional GCSE. Short courses also allow more able students to take extra subjects, like a second foreign language.”
OK. But what if your child’s school doesn’t offer the chance to take two languages, or if subjects clash? Or if they don’t offer an exam at all?
Then there’s what must be the thorny issue of whether the teacher will put you into an exam which will only allow a maximum of grade C, or allow you to sit a presumably harder one which means you can get an A*?
I know this isn’t new. (After all, I did O’Levels and CSEs, as a backup, and the latter saved me from being an utter failure in a few subjects).
Teachers, presumably with not inconsiderable pressure from league table-obsessed headteachers, have to choose whether to put little Johnny into an exam which on a good day might get him a B, and on a bad day, an E, or chose instead to push him into doing an exam which should see him get a C but not allow for anything better. I bet that causes a few Parent V Teacher confrontations. After all, league tables need Cs, but parents want As and Bs, even if little Johnny’s only real understanding of the alphabet is via the Y, X, A and B buttons on an xBox or Playstation controller.
At least we’ve got a little while before all this exam malarkey kicks in for real.
To those pupils and parents currently embarking on six-weeks of exam hell, I wish you the best of luck.
Filed under Parenting
Hilary Scott Writes 