I’ve been a little jittery this week, working up to a few hectic weeks of school trips which will see our two eldest leave the country and number three son off on his first overnight stay away, all without us.
It’s been hard watching the two teens turn into mini-men of late. I hadn’t realised Eldest had started shaving until he kissed me goodnight on the cheek and I felt bristles (no, not mine). Coarse bristles, on my baby boy. Admittedly now aged 15, taller than me, and with bigger feet.
Now he’s off on a French exchange trip with school for a week. Yes, he’s been away before, but not hundreds of miles away in a different country!
He comes back and the French lad who hosts this week will be coming to our noisy, untidy house. Poor kid.
Then Second Son is off – civil unrest depending – to Tunisia. Bloody Tunisia. In AFRICA! Another continent. My Google maps couldn’t cope when I asked it for directions.
After his return there’s whatever remains of Easter and a Duke of Edinburgh camping weekend, before Son Three is off to Everdon, host to thousands of Northamptonshire school kids over the years. I might have at least experienced this twice before but its still my baby off without me for the first time. The excitement and anxiety is felt just as keenly.
In the midst of all these travelling boys will be Bonnie, just turned five, demanding to know why she isn’t going with any of them.
If I look more frazzled than usual in this spring, you’ll know why. . .
Growing up and going away – just on school trips for now
Filed under Parenting
Billy is set designing for his new film
Billy is nine, but wants to make his own film. This is his set being built. No help from us either.
Filed under Parenting
Snow-bound Sunday? Make a rocket
There’s only so much telly you can watch on snow day, so Bonnie is making a rocket.
You need:
A plastic bottle
A newspaper ripped into small squares
Flour – about two tablespoons
Water – mixed with flour to make a runny paste
Paint
Buttons to decorate
Put child in suitable apron
Cover bottle with paper squares dipped in flour glue until no plastic visible
Leave to dry
Paint
Stick buttons on for portholes.
Find something else for bored offspring to do next.
Not a conventional rocket…
A Christmas Carol at Royal & Derngate, Northampton – Review
Four-year-old daughter settled into her theatre seat and made a pronouncement: “Ooh, this looks a bit too scary for me.”
This was before the curtain had even gone up.
Admittedly, it was a scary black curtain, which rose to show a classic Victorian street scene – only with the added brilliance of the Royal set-makers; boxes piled on boxes, upon bookcases and grandfather clocks. All moveable mini sets which characters could climb and peer through.
A Christmas Carol has been going down a storm at Northampton’s Royal & Derngate this year, and rightly so. I haven’t heard a bad word about 2012’s in-house offering – a welcome antidote to the giant celebrity-studded Bobby Davro/Denise Loose-women omnipanto next door in Derngate.
Pantomime it ain’t. The show sticks to the original Dickens classic story pretty religiously and that’s to its credit; there’s no soft-soaping of the Victorian urban setting here. Poverty, cold and Scrooge (played to miserly perfection by the considerably younger Sam Graham), grumbles and snarls his way around Christmas Eve like there’s no tomorrow, and of course, for him there might not be.
Cue the three ghosts – the Santa-like Andy Williams gives a show-stealing turn as the ghost of Christmas present as well as Jacob Marley – and Scrooge has to clean up his act for the sake of poor old’ Tiny Tim and the Cratchetts.
The cast are marvellous, and combined with a slick script and that mesmerising set, it’s a set of ingredients which leaves the audience feeling full and contented. Even the four-year-olds.
If you manage to get a ticket, do try to see it before the run ends on January 6. Box office is on 01604 624811.
I can’t guarantee any celebrity spotting on the way out though. Our Bloke saw Philip Schofield as we were leaving, although none of us – bah humbug – believed him. Turns out he was watching his brother-in-law play Scrooge.
Filed under Reviews
How fast can you build hundreds of new homes? Pretty damn fast actually . . .
Just a quick update to my previous update on the old Cherry Orchard school site in Northampton, which backs onto my allotment. https://scarymotha.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/an-update-to-cherry-orchard-school/
There’s now a whole house just over the wall and people actually living in the ones facing Birchfield Road East. The ones at the Wellingborough Road end, predictably posher-looking, also look finished. Here’s a couple of views from the side…
I don’t believe in writer’s block, but I think I’ve got it
I haven’t written anything in ages.
I know, I hear you say kind reader, if you’ve been bothering to come back to this site, (which is awfully patient of you).
I have tried.
There are several half-started posts sitting in the drafts box on a variety of topics from neglected regional newspapers to badly behaved children. But none are finished.
Yet I’ve been writing every day for almost 20 years. From local news to gardening and parenting articles, PR guff and copywriting, university lectures and reports, and of course, blogposts.
Ours is a house of writing. Two journalists. No escape.
Articles are written with ruthless efficiency. 1,500 words in a couple of hours? Easy.
But then I stopped.
Firstly too busy. I had a 9,000 word essay to write, which wasn’t journalism and was bloody hard. I’m still not sure it was right.
Then I was too backlogged with the amount unwritten.
More procrastination.
Then I just couldn’t.
Then felt depressed I couldn’t. “Don’t be stupid Hilary, just write a bloody post,” said the voice of my sleepless nights.
Still nothing. Blank screen.
Before the ‘block’ I lost a long term weekly writing contract (this was some months ago), without any real notice, explanation or actual final date.
I suspect it’s had a deeper effect than just the initial anger and disappointment, especially as it was left hanging so I couldn’t offer my services elsewhere.
Whatever the cause, my previous skepticism of writers’ block is cancelled.
It’s taken nine days to write this tiny blog post . . . and it sounds a bit whingey.
Seriously, do you let your parents call your university lecturer or employer? It’s time to break free
Courtesy OnlineCollege.org 
Filed under Parenting
An update to Cherry Orchard School
I wrote here about the demise of Cherry Orchard school in Northampton earlier this year.
Here’s what the Birchfield end looks like now, just six months later. Houses already for sale. Funny how fast things can happen…
Not sure the people living around area appreciate the keen builders though, as work starts at 7am, even on Saturday. Ouch.
The Girl has started school (and why half days should be abolished)
The Girl has started school.
The last of my brood of four has been slung into the compulsory education system, which will dominate her life for the next 14 years.
Surprisingly, I didnt cry, but more surprisingly, she did.
Now I’m not by nature a sobber, but each time one of our three sons started school, I found myself having a sniffle once back in the privacy of the car. This time, as she was bouncing around with excitement and settling easily, I was almost punching the air. ‘That’s IT! She loves it, and no more childcare fees!’ No lump in the throat, no fizzy nose.
The Boys and The Girl ready for school
She’s been in nursery at least a few days a week since she was three, and luckily for us the nursery is on the same site as the school, so she will continue to see the staff at the after- school club with her older brother, who is almost nine. (so I lied, there will actually still be some childcare fees, but not as much).
But because of this archaic and frankly annoying system of ‘transition’ in primary schools, where new kids only attend half days for the first few weeks, we are having to put her back in to nursery during the afternoons.
This completely threw her on the first day, and she sobbed, because she wanted ‘to be in school like Billy’. The next day she cried on the way in and wanted to stay home. All very out of character.
She fell asleep on the way home on the first two days and cried several times. This has thrown me, as the boys had to be dragged away from school and barely gave us a second look.
We have been asking her during bedtime chats why she cries but she doesn’t seem to know.
So, sticking to form, I’m trying bribery: a cry-free day might mean a nice surprise (she’s had her eye on that Lego for girls).
I think the half days are disruptive. It’s even worse for other parents. I know plenty who have had to take unpaid leave FOR A MONTH because the child needs collecting at 11.30, or 3, or dropping at lunchtime.
Plenty of reception teachers and nursery nurses think it’s unnecessary too.
Yes, there are four year olds who have been at home with a parent for four years, who might need time to adjust.
But most will have had some experience of nursery, and the routine of education. After all, free nursery halfdays start at age 3.
So why do so many schools insist on this ridiculous staggering of the reception intake?
There must be some evidence that it isn’t necessary or even in the interests of the children. I know at least two Northampton schools who have abandoned the half days and just start them full-time, all at the same time.
By all means admit them a day after the older kids if it helps, but please, just get them in and let them get on with it. Fewer tears, less confusion for them, less anxiety for us.
What do you think? Feel free to comment below . . .
Filed under Parenting
Toksvig’s Bully Boy at Royal & Derngate, Northampton, August 2012 – review
DON’T be misled by the title of Sandi Toksvig’s mesmerising post-war drama Bully Boy, currently running at Royal & Derngate in Northampton – I’d wrongly imagined some sort of public school stuff costume piece or a gritty exploration of modern urban state schools.
No, the education here is of the audience, taught through the story of two traumatised soldiers brought together during the investigation of a grim war crime.
Joshua Miles and Anthony Andrews, picture © Mike Eddowes
Major Oscar Hadley (Anthony Andrews), a Falklands veteran, is sent by the Army to Afghanistan’s combat-zone to investigate the death of an eight-year-old civilian boy and his mother at the hands of a group of British soldiers, nicknamed ‘the Bully Boys’.
He interviews the prime suspect; pumped-up, aggressive young soldier Eddie Clark (Joshua Miles), a 20-year-old from Burnley who signed up at 16. Eddie is immature and institutionalised, showing racist indifference to the dead locals he has been sent to protect, and fiercely defensive of his fellow ‘bully boys’ who the Major implies have blamed him for the death.
Using a stripped down set (R&D on top form as always) with lighting and sound effects that literally make you jump out of your seat, the developing relationship between the two soldiers is mesmerising and incredibly moving.
Andrews, perhaps typecast through his career as the tortured toff, is on top form in what must be both a physically and mentally exhausting production, especially for a national treasure now in his 60s.
But the play is notable for the extraordinary performance of newly graduated Joshua Miles as Eddie, rolling the character through such a series of demands both emotional and physical. He is pure squaddie from head to foot and his development of the character from hateful ignorance through to tragic victim shows great talent for a young actor.
Anthony Andrews as Major Oscar Hadley picture © Mike Eddowes
Written by comedienne and broadcasting darling Sandi Toksvig, better known for her appearances on Radio 4 and QI, Bully Boy is both deeply moving and humourous. Despite detailed research with military charities and her own partner, a psychotherapist, the story, for me, was not without faults. Several times I found myself jolted out of suspension of disbelief – “well, he’d never have spoken to him like that,” or “the Army would never have let them travel in the same vehicle”,”that’s a sports wheelchair”, and on several occasions, “where are the bloody Military Police in all this?” The initial question of the death of a child and his mother gets forgotten as sympathies switch to the mental health of the soldiers.
Nevertheless it’s an extraordinary telling of the truth about war and its consequences, and a stark expression of the issue of the ongoing mental health of generations of forces personnel.
An excellent piece of theatre again from Royal & Derngate, Bully Boy is a completely re-staged version from the first run of the play in Southampton last year, and will continue on after its Northampton run into undoubted success in London. I highly recommend you see it while it’s here, and it’s a shame it can’t be made compulsory viewing for all secondary school children. Or just everyone.
Bully Boy runs until Saturday, September 15. Tickets can be booked now by calling Box Office on 01604 624811 or visiting www.royalandderngate.co.uk.
- Make sure too that you put some pennies in the collection bucket for the Combat Stress charity, or text BBOY12 £5to 70070 to give an instant donation of a fiver to help veterans with wounded minds.
Can’t help but see Anthony Andrews with rasta dreadlocks in this cover image from the programme
Hilary Scott Writes 