Tag Archives: Northampton

May 24, 2011 · 1:00 am

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

 
 
More pics to come. . .
 
 

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May 20, 2011 · 8:48 am

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 . . ?

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May 19, 2011 · 8:35 am

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.

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May 17, 2011 · 8:34 am

The Lion King with little monkeys

 IT was Dougie’s 12th birthday, and as an extraordinary treat, we all went to see the Lion King on stage in London’s West End.

It was a secret, kept for months, which none of the children were allowed in on, despite much begging and pleading. First rule of birthday surprise? No-one talks about birthday surprise.

For much of the run-up, the boys were convinced they were going to the Northampton Saints vs Leeds rugby match. It would have been a good day, especially as they won, and a treat, because it’s just too expensive for six of us to go more than once in a blue moon.

However, when we got them up early, and then pulled into the train station, they were properly confused. It was great. For once, we knew more than the kids.

All the way down they tried to catch us out: “So, what time do we have to be at the . . . what was it again?”

On the train, we ended up (standing) next to another family going to the West End to see The Wizard of Oz. Their girls knew, but as it was their first time on a train, and their first visit to London, they were already bouncing off the walls with excitement.

“I know!” shouted Dougie, barely able to contain himself, “We’re going to watch Man U V Chelsea!”

“That’s tomorrow,” reminded Bloke.

In the tube stations they watched carefully as we worked out which stops we needed, to see if it gave them a clue. It didn’t.

When we walked out at Covent Garden, the first thing they saw was a set of their grandparents, waving. Now they were really confused. Especially Bonnie. Why was Gang-Gang not at her house? And where was Toby, their dog?

Granddad told them we were going to have lunch, and let the first and only clue slip: “The restaurant’s down here, and it’s near the theatre.”

The boys were straight on it. “Is it Shrek? Is it Wicked?” We stayed tight-lipped all through lunch. The questioning continued relentlessly.

Billy was the first to really get it when we approached the theatre by a side road when he saw a poster. We actually got the secret almost to the door.

The show was amazing, well, what I saw of it. Bonnie decided that despite usually behaving on theatre trips, and a plethora of bribes, now would be the time to hop on and off everyone’s laps every few minutes, lie on the floor, kick the seats in front and shout loudly “Is that the BADDIE?”

When I gave her a whispered telling off, she started wailing and much to my embarrassment, an usher came to, well, usher us out until Bonnie calmed down. I watched the rest of the show from the back while Bonnie rolled about on the floor, laughing.

Thankfully, the birthday boy saw it all and loved it, and was delighted it had been a genuine surprise.

It ups the ante for next year though. Perhaps we can start saving for a Saints’ game next May . . .

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May 16, 2011 · 8:44 am

Three-year-old miss driving me crazy

WHEN you have four children, people might assume that you have the solution to all parenting issues. Maybe more so when you parade yourself each week in the pages of a newspaper as someone who writes about parenting issues.

The stark fact is that as a parent, you never really have solution to problems that your kids throw at you.

Children go through phases as they grow. Sometimes difficult, drawn-out ones that drive you to distraction, and often completely different from any sibling who may have arrived on the planet earlier.

You might know a few tricks from experience which help, but ultimately, there’s no magic wand; no fairy godmother. (Although our kids do have someone they call their “Fairy Godmother,” who lives abroad and visits with armfuls of exotic presents, massive hugs and doting attention).

Bonnie goes her own way

Bonnie is three-years-old. She’s the only girl, and the fourth child.

And at the moment, she’s driving me up the wall. Forget the ‘Terrible Twos’, it should be the ‘terrible twos-and-threes-and-possibly-even-fours.’

Most of the time, she’s funny, bright and adorable to be around.

Sometimes, she can be a naughty little madam.

And it’s true that all the boys had their phases. Tantrums, rudeness, fighting, back-chat and disobedience, yes, been there, seen that.

Bonnie seems to be totally immune to my methods. The boys were usually aware when they’d crossed the line. For Bonnie, half the fun seems to be in jumping over it. For Bonnie, it seems the words “No,” and “Don’t” are heard instead as “Go ahead, of course you can.”

The books will tell you that you shouldn’t use negative words around kids, but that’s no good when they’re balancing on top of a stool on top of a beanbag to try to climb up a bookcase, or have worked out how to remove screw-top lids on everything from sauce bottles to shampoo. When they constantly try to wriggle out of your grasp when crossing roads, or run off in shopping centres, it’s not just exhausting, it’s dangerous.

Perhaps it’s not the kids. Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps I’ve just forgotten how nerve-shredding, ear-splitting, panic-inducing, repetitive and knackering having pre-schoolers can be.

One thing I do know, from experience, is that the best thing is to grin and bear it until she grows out of it . . . and/or the next issue comes along to distract everyone.

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May 10, 2011 · 8:42 am

A belated Royal Wedding post . . .

BONNIE was completely baffled by the Royal Wedding. But she liked being allowed to wear an array of princess dresses for a week.

She particularly liked the commemorative mug she was given by her nursery during three days of garden parties, crown-making and dressing-up. A nice touch, I thought, by her nursery, whose manager Debbie Hasson wanted the kids to have something as a keepsake like we parents had been given 30 years ago (my mother is the Keeper of the Mugs, including one for Charles and Di and the Silver Jubilee in 1977).

On the actual day of the wedding, our kids weren’t really in the mood to sit in front of the telly and watch some people they didn’t know get married.

But we made them anyway, muttering words like “history” and “day-off” at them.

They turned off the Xbox at 10.45am and within about 15 minutes, seven-year old Billy had taken himself off to bed with a high temperature and sore throat, missing the whole thing completely.

Bonnie kept changing her outfits like a demented Oscar-night hostess – starting with Cinderella’s Princess outfit and alternating it with Tinkerbell’s dress and a sparkly white fairy number. To Bonnie, the words “Princess” and “Fairy” are inseparable. I think she was disappointed that Kate didn’t sprout wings and fly off over Buck Palace.

No Boden-Yummy-Mummy-led street party for us. Far too disorganised. Instead we fed them sandwiches and strawberries and the remains of their Easter egg stash. By 2pm, the TV was back to shooting aliens and we returned to the mundane activities of a bank-holiday – a spot of housework and fixing broken things.

It will be years before they have another Royal Wedding holiday, but the next Bank Holiday is less than a month away, on May 30. We may go out.

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May 9, 2011 · 2:41 pm

They trashed my house and now I have tip guilt

 THANK goodness. Back to normality. It’s been nice an’ all, but the kids have been at home for 21 of the last 25 days.

They are back to school for 20 days and then off for another week and a day for half term and teacher training. Tough life.

While they have been at home, everything has broken (including my resolve).

To steal the words of the Tall Dad from the TV show The Middle, “The only nice things in our house come here to break.”

The destruction tally over the past month is as follows:

The CD player in the boys’ room. (Wires to speakers inexplicably snapped).

The TV in the boys’ room which only plays DVDs (they put two DVDs in at once and broke the drawer)

An expensive all-wood chest of drawers in the boys’ room (several parts of slammed and over-stuffed drawers have had to be glued and nailed back in place)

My ‘office’ printer, (being used at the time to print out homework)

An Xbox headset (spun about by its wires)

The food processor (OK, so the motor burned out as I was too lazy to knead dough)

Two pairs of sunglasses (must have had faulty legs)

A TV remote (now held together with sticky tape) and

Both our knackered old cars (admittedly, the kids had nothing to do with the cars).

So without even going away anywhere, it’s been an expensive month, especially as the older two seem to go through a week’s worth of food in about a day.

One win though. Someone also broke my battered but beloved old Anglepoise lamp. I thought it was another candidate for the bin but thanks to the Internet, I fixed it by installing a complete new wiring kit bought online. Yes, me. I re-wired it. Even added a new plug.

A small survivor amidst the wreckage of the school holidays.

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May 6, 2011 · 12:22 pm

It’s panto season (oh no it isn’t. . .)

It might be eight months until Christmas, but the theatres are already taking bookings for their Christmas pantomimes and seasonal shows.

There’s a newish addition to the venue list this year as the Core at the Corby Cube, managed by Royal & Derngate, will be offering its second season of seasonal, er, stuff .

It may feel odd, but now’s the time to book as there are usually early-bird discounts and panto tickets are notoriously expensive, especially if you have a stupid amount of children like I do.

Here’s the press blurb, stay tuned for more panto news. . .

“The Core is delighted to announce that this Christmas they will be presenting not one, but two, great family shows for Corby audiences to enjoy. One Snowy Night, from the popular Tales from Percy’s Park series by Nick Butterworth, can be seen from Tuesday 29 November to Sunday 4 December, and then CBBC’s Dan and Jeff present the hilarious Potted Panto from Wednesday 7 to Sunday 10 December. 

One Snowy Night is a wonderfully heart-warming winter’s story. Percy the Park Keeper always feeds the animals in the park where he lives. But one cold winter’s night, Percy finds his little friends shivering on the doorstep – they need more than food and he must find a way to help them. With delightful handmade puppets, an original soundtrack and dance, Nick Butterworth’s well-known and well-loved tale is brought to life in a magical show ideal for three to six-year olds.

The creators of Potted Potter and Potted Pirates, Dan and Jeff, perform seven classic pantomimes in just eighty minutes, in Potted Panto, their most extravagant show yet, in glorious 3D. In a madcap ride through the biggest stories and best-loved characters from panto, the dastardly double act dash from rubbing Aladdin’s lamp to roaming the golden streets of Dick Whittington’s London. Searching for Cinderella’s lost slipper, they try to wake Sleeping Beauty before the giant climbs down Jack’s beanstalk to squash Snow White’s seven dwarves.

Nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment after a successful West End run, Potted Panto is unmissable fun for all ages, from six to 106.

Tickets for One Snowy Night are priced from £8 to £12.50 and Potted Panto tickets are £8 to £13, with concessions for families, groups and schools. For more information or to book, call the Ticket Line on 01536 470 470 or visit http://www.thecorecorby.com.”

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May 4, 2011 · 12:01 pm

Review – The Gruffalo’s Child, Royal and Derngate

A MUM took a stroll to the deep dark theatre – accompanied by a three-year-old and an 11-year-old (the seven-year-old was tucked up in bed ill and the 13-year-old decided he’s rather be ‘daan taan’ with his mates).

Copyright Macmillan Children’s Books

There was much excitement about the stage show of the children’s book, the Gruffalo’s Child, the sequel to the hugely popular Gruffalo which saw a mouse outwit a big hairy monster. The Gruffalo and the Gruffalo’s Child are repeatedly requested at bedtime in our house and we know the words off by heart.

We’d actually attempted to see the original Gruffalo on stage at a festival last summer and had given up due to the huge crowds. The best place to see theatre of this kind is definitely in a small theatre.

The Gruffalo’s Child sees the eponymous heroine sneaking away from Dad into the deep dark wood to find if the Big Bad Mouse really does exist.
The show at Northampton’s Royal & Derngate was really very good, exactly as children’s storytelling should be, but I think the weather and the Royal Wedding may have had an effect on ticket sales as it was far from full. Surprising for such a popular book and well-thought-out production.

Not necessarily the cast we saw, but the only pictures available. Oh and they are Copyright Geraint Lewis

The script sticks fairly close to the original story but to duplicate it would make it considerably shorter than an hour (I can whip through a bedtime story in about four minutes), so there’s additional dialogue and songs.

The cast of three were excellent, particularly Yvette Clutterbuck as the G’s child, who bounds around the stage like a demented Kathy Burke in Perry the Teenager mode, getting the laughs, the bravado and the vulnerability just right. It’s a very physical piece of theatre, and she must have been boiling in her costume, purple prickles and all.

Our 11-year wasn’t sure if the Narrator/Mouse was actually meant to be the Mouse, as he said her costume wasn’t ‘right’, but she drove the pace of the  show along well.

The Gruffalo Dad was immobile due to the constraints of the costume on set, and Bonnie wanted to see him stomp about. We were confused by the Snake, who didn’t seem in the slightest bit snake-like. Half the fun of the snake is the alliterative dialogue of his ‘s’ sounds. This snake was portrayed as Bruno from Strictly Come Dancing. Eh?

Copyright Geraint Lewis

 However, The Owl and the Fox were marvellous, and the song and dance routines between the three actors went down a storm. Perhaps surprisingly, our 11-year-old was more captivated than his three-year-old sister. She was just too fidgety when the dialogue strayed too far from what she knew. She did, however, literally dance in the aisles, and both kids loved the use of ‘Stick Man,’ who we’d never really noticed in the book.

Oh, and after the merchandise overload of Peppa Pig Live, I didn’t see any parental mugging at The Gruffallo’s Child, as I think Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, the original authors, are quite strict about it.
We did get a ‘Souvenir Postergramme’, with a picture on one side and the cast info on the other, which I thought was a great idea.

The Gruffalo’s Child is certainly worth seeing if in your area. It’s a loving re-creation of the book and has an intelligence about it which is sadly lacking in many other ‘branded’ productions aimed at the under-tens. Getting theatre right for this age group is essential for the future of live performance.

The show is still touring at the following venues:

May 2011
05-06 Rhodes Arts Complex, Bishops Stortford
07-08 The Capitol, Horsham
11-12 Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells
13-14 The Broadway Theatre, Peterborough
17-19 The Courtyard Theatre, Hereford
20-21 North Wales Theatre, Llandudno
24-25 New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth
28-29 Dorking Halls, Dorking
31 West Yorkshire Playhouse (The Quarry Theatre), Leeds

June 2011
01-04 West Yorkshire Playhouse (The Quarry Theatre), Leeds
08-11 Theatre Royal, Plymouth
16-18 The Swan Theatre, Wycombe
19-20 Buxton Opera House
24-26 The Rose, Kingston
27-29 The Orchard, Dartford

July – 01-02 Yeovil Octagon

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May 1, 2011 · 9:46 am

Should you let a 13-year-old go to a 15-year-old’s party?

WE’D been deliberating for weeks, trying to decide whether or not to let 13-year-old Jed go to a 15th birthday party for one of his friends. Not an all-nighter or anything, but at village hall disco until 11pm.

We had an ideal opportunity to stop him going when he got a less than favourable school report. But we ended up letting him ‘earn back’ the right to go with immaculate homework and behaviour.

Like many parents, I imagined the worst. Alcohol sneaked in, over-amorous teens and sick everywhere.

Actually, it was all fine, everyone behaved and her mum and dad were there.

Note to self: not all teenagers are as horrible and devious as you were.

Second note to self: the parties are only going to get worse. . .

Third note to self: the story about the 15-year-old who died at a party broke the day after Jed had been to his. . .

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