Tag Archives: Northampton

November 10, 2010 · 2:26 pm

Firework fun? Or just standing around cold and wet?

FOR the first time in a couple of years, I succumbed to the offspring’s nagging to go to an organised firework display.

My usual objection is that it always seems to rain, or be the coldest night on record, or that there’s something better we could be doing, like watching TV, in the warm.

There’s the other issue of not knowing how smaller kids will react. As a toddler Dougie had the screaming ab-dabs at a cub firework display and we had to head home sharpish. He’s 11 now and loves ’em.

Living in a town centre rather than a village makes a difference. While many villages have a pleasant community event, with soup and sparklers and a bar nearby, us townies have to settle for endless pyrotechnics and the sound of gunpowder for two weeks leading up to and after November 5.

Quite frankly, it takes the fun out of fireworks when the squeals and blasts go off every night, all night, and wake up your kids.

However, there was an organised Fireworks Do at Casuals Rugby Club, where the boys play, so I relented.

As I stood for what felt like hours with our rain-soaked seven-year-old beside the dripping pushchair which held our indignant-to-be-strapped-in two-year-old, as our drenched eldest sons played football in the mud, I remembered again why I don’t do Bonfire Night. It’s cold, and wet, and boring.

Then the fireworks started. Youngest two instantly covered ears and eyes, until they were cajoled to look at the amazing sight of stars and colours and sparkles of light bursting in the sky above us. It was ten minutes of whizz-banging joy to make up for all the discomfort and waiting.

No one minded the journey home in a damp and muddy car, and there’s something to be said for the pleasure of getting back to a warm house and into warm clothes.

Next year though, I’m definitely staying indoors.

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November 6, 2010 · 9:18 am

E for effort: the painful process of teaching British university students

AS there’s plenty of chat about university places at the moment, I thought I’d dig out a column from earlier in the year featuring some of my beloved former students:

FOR the past few weeks I’ve been marking exam papers. And it’s made me realise how much of a under-used skill spelling seems to have become.

I appreciate the fact I’m a journalist, writing in the ‘Chronical'[SIC]. Being fussy about spelling errors.

But there’s a difference between the occasional typing error or misplaced comma, and the apparent lack of effort by people who are supposed to be in the top percentage of learners – university students.

I know, I know, it means you’re getting old when you start moaning about how badly young people are educated ‘these days.’

However, I know as a parent of primary age children that they still have weekly spelling tests and are expected to learn them.

So what happens after that? Do secondary schools mark down homework and coursework for incorrect spelling? Why do seemingly intelligent teenagers with reasonable A Level grades arrive at higher education with such a poor grasp of grammar? And then expect to get degrees in ‘writing’ subjects like English and journalism?

It’s not all of them, of course. Across the classes there are many whose use of English is perfect. More often than not, the ones who spell correctly are from overseas.

Mature students, and those with dyslexia, also tend to produce work that has been corrected.

Those who don’t bother tend to be late teens, early 20s, and British. It’s not just their work, their entire communication is full of errors.

I don’t agree that it’s texting which has perpetuated this laziness with English. After all, most use predictive text which spells words for you. Today’s students spend their entire lives talking to each other via instant messaging, texts, email and tweets.

Mostly I blame ‘It Doesn’t Matter’ syndrome. It’s just a quick post on Twitter, so it dunt matta. I’m just replying to someone on Facebook, so it’s informal. Teens will always stick two fingers up to the oldies by vandalising language.

And that’s fine, in their own time. But not when you want me to mark your impossible-to-decipher essay.

So how to fix it? This wasn’t just a handful of teens who didn’t know the difference between their, there, and they’re. This was the majority.

Most common offences seem to be the disregard of all capital letters, at the beginning of sentences or for proper names. Then there are words that sound similar but they can’t decide which to use and can’t be bothered to check. And apostrophes? Stuck in anywhere! (Mostly for plurals, or should I say, plural’s)

One of the first things I insisted on was that any emails sent to me had to be spell-checked, with capital letters in the right places and correct use of apostrophes, or I wouldn’t read them. Then they had to proof-read each other’s work in class, which bored them rigid and made them at least hit the spell-check button more regularly. And it has improved. One girl admitted she simply hadn’t noticed how badly she communicated. Another was delighted when he finally understood when to put an apostrophe in “it’s.”

I find it disrespectful to receive communication where people can’t even be bothered to put a capital letter on their OWN name, let alone mine. Is it really so hard to type the word you’re unsure of into an online dictionary? Or, heaven forbid, use a REAL dictionary?

So when I’ve been marking work which is littered with errors, it shows they haven’t bothered, so they lose marks. Assignments and exams should be a reflection of your best work, showing off your abilities.

Basic grammar and correct spelling are like table manners. It puts me off if you don’t use them.

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November 5, 2010 · 9:14 am

‘Bring me a Minion!’ (and a cinema booster seat)

The Minions

WE don’t get to the cinema that much as a family, due to Bonnie’s refusal to sit still for more than a few minutes unless Peppa Pig is on screen.

However, after much nagging by the boys, over half-term we went to see the new animation Despicable Me at Cineworld. (Billy and Bonnie have trouble pronouncing ‘despicable.’ So of course, we make them say it as much as possible.)

We have two cinemas in town but tend to always go to the older one at Sixfields, because the parking is so much better and the staff are good. But their top-brass could do with bunging some money at the tired old loos. Yuk.

If you have small people with you at the cinema, make sure you grab a plastic ‘booster’ seat on the way in. It prevents you having to fish out your distressed and doubled-over offspring from the innards of the folding seats when their bottoms inevitably fall through the gap.

The film was great, thanks mostly to the Minions, an army of little yellow pill-shaped workers whose toilet humour and sniggering noises made the kids belly-laugh every time they were on screen.

The basic plot involves grumpy, lonely, wannabe villain, Gru, adopting three little girls, Margo, Edith and Agnes, to use in a sinister plot to steal the moon.

Without becoming Disney-sentimental, it is a poignant and hilariously funny depiction of the modern family, and for once, little girls are the heroes.

We chose the 2D version over the ubiquitous 3D showing, because Bonnie just won’t wear the ill-fitting glasses.

Usually avoiding 3D makes little difference, but when the credits rolled, there was obviously an amazing spell of visual brilliance with the minions (who have names like Mark, Phil, Stuart and Dave) popping out of the screen towards the audience. So if you get a chance to go, it might be worth the battle with the specs.

As we were leaving, Bonnie said: “Mummy, my have min-yin.” (Translation: Mother, get me a minion, now.”)

And while I’m sure she’ll want plenty of minions running about after her when she’s older, for now a toy minion has shot to the top of her letter to Father Christmas.

Let’s just hope he can track down somewhere that actually has them in stock. . .anyone. . ?

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November 4, 2010 · 8:45 am

Swapping childminder for nursery: farewell second mum

 END of an era for the kids this week, as Bonnie left our faithful Childminder Claire and moved to nursery.

The change has come after six years, on and off, of family-home childcare, and it’s a bit of a wrench.

Our older boys went to nursery when just a few months old. Things have certainly changed in a decade.

Back when I had Child 1, if you hadn’t been at the same job for two years then you only got three months maternity leave. Now you can have up to a year off (mostly unpaid).

At one point having Child 1 and Child 2 in nursery cost me over £850 a month. Which was more than I earned. I was £10 a month down. But I did it to hang on to a full-time job and (I thought), career.

Scroll forward to 2003 and time for one year old Child 3 to need childcare. Fees had gone up, while our wages stayed stagnant.

I was recommended Claire through a primary school teacher pal. It was not only cheaper to hire a childminder, but I got a good friend into the bargain.

She looked after Billy full-time until he started half-day nursery at three-and-a-half, then went had him part-time before he started school.

When I was running late she collected the boys from school for me. When I needed holiday cover she took them all in. Naturally, when Child 4 Bonnie came along, I went to Claire for childcare again, although this time I was a freelance, and my hours were much more erratic.

When her own daughter, Leah, came along after two sons, Bonnie had a playmate the same age. The pair of them have been partners in crime ever since. They giggle like, well, little girls.

Bonnie might be older by a few months, but two-year-old Leah is definitely the boss.

But Claire has decided to pack in the childminding, and spend some one-on-one time with her own offspring. So Bonnie is off to the same nursery that her eldest brothers attended.

It was funny and touching when we visited nursery with the boys, who haven’t been there for seven or more years. Lots of the same staff who looked after Jed and Doug as nippers were still there, and recognised them. There was much hugging and cheek-pinching, and bashful delight as the boys were told how tall and handsome they’ve grown.

Bonnie’s started this week, and the early signs are that she loves it. Tables with dough on? Painting areas? Brilliant!

But I suspect that despite all the new friends and excitement, she’ll miss her little mucka. I think we’ll be popping around for lots of cuppas to stay in touch. After all, Claire’s been like a second mum to Bill and Bonn. She’ll be missed.

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October 31, 2010 · 9:33 am

Damn you cupcakes, you’ve killed the humble fairy

Bonnie makes cakes (but only eats the topping)

WHATEVER brought about this recent revival of the humble cupcake, it has left me with mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I have a simple and usually enjoyable half-hour activity beloved by all the kids which usually results in something vaguely edible.

On the other, I’m eating way too much cake.

There’s also the competition. No longer can you get away with producing a plain fairy cake, perhaps embellished with a spot of buttercream or jam and some ‘wings’ gouged out of the top.

No, now it’s all muffin cases and three inches of pink icing, topped off with chocolate whirls and silver baubles. Or fancy hand-crafted decorations, fashioned as if by real tiny fairies, and delicately placed like artwork atop a light sponge scented with lavender and lemon zest.

Bonnie, aged two, isn’t so fussy. She’s happy just to play with cake mix and scoff any sweeties that might be destined for the topping. The only part she’s not interested in is actually eating the cakes.

Well, someone’s gotta do it. . .

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October 29, 2010 · 8:21 am

Do your children play Call of Duty, even though they’re underage?

THE major topic under discussion in our house lately has been whether or not I should pre-order the Xbox game Call of Duty:Black Ops for our eldest two sons.

They’ve saved up their money by selling their used video games, and want to get it ‘pre-ordered’ for once (I usually make them wait until games come down in price).

The biggest issue at hand is that CoD-BO (yes, get with the lingo Grandma) is certificate 18. Surely “no”, then?

Ah, well, we’ve already started out of shaky moral ground here, because we’ve allowed them to play the previous six versions of these games, which ranged from certificate 15. Our eldest sons are aged 11 and 13. So already, Very Bad Parenting.

I might scramble back some foothold by saying we didn’t buy the games for the kids. Bloke bought them for himself, and the boys were allowed to play them after he did.

Would we let our boys watch 18 rated films? Er, no. So why the double standards?

For the uninitiated, Call of Duty is a series of visually stunning, reasonably historical, scarily addictive first-person shooter games. Essentially war games with you as a soldier with a gun.  

We’ve had versions set in the Second World War, ones set in the modern Middle East, with levels in deserts, Arctic landscapes, shopping malls and dusty favelas. There is usually a ‘plot’ of sorts, which sees you having to make decisions about preserving yourself and your brothers-in-arms. But this doesn’t alter the fact that the game is about shooting people. You can even play online and ‘talk’ to other players via headsets, but this doesn’t happen in our house.

There’s no doubt that teen boys have a weird fascination with war and soldiers. Bloke is a total military history nerd. From an early age he was setting up armies of toy soldiers and replaying battles with his brother. He can tell you the formation of troops from Bosworth to Blenheim, how military strategies saw millions of men gunned down in the two world wars and yet is a card-carrying pacifist in real life. This, he argues, is because he’s well-informed about the realities of warfare, a view he came to through play.

Video games might be waved in the air by the scaremongering media as the reason for our violent society. And it’s certainly true that allowing your kids unfettered access to unlimited hours sitting in a darkened room shooting people on-screen isn’t healthy.

But ultimately, CoD is a game. It’s a well-rendered modern cartoon. It’s paint-balling without the mud and sweat. The boys are in no doubt whatsoever that what they are watching in CoD isn’t ‘real.’ The news reports and television documentaries showing the dreadfulness of actual war are real, and scary, and awful, and ultimately avoidable. CoD players have to problem-solve, make choices, plan and work as a team. They learn.

I’m not sure they do so from other games, like the ones where they take pot-shots at various mentally unstable cartoon rabbits (suitable for 3+).

I hasten to add at this point that when the older boys are allowed on CoD games, their younger siblings are elsewhere. We don’t allow any computer games on ‘school nights’ and usually restrict access to weekends. And they don’t have games or TV in their rooms, only in the living room where we can see what they’re doing.

We had a moment, last time a CoD game arrived in the house, where a level showed civilians being gunned down in an airport. We had prior warning of this moment from a gaming geek who told us that when we got to this level, there was a ‘skip level’ option. We skipped it.

Some parents argue that because their friends play the games, they should too, to avoid being left out of their social circle. I don’t buy that argument. Plenty of the boys’ friends are allowed to watch 18 horror films, and stay up every night until stupid-o’clock. But we censor post-watershed telly and everyone has sensible bedtimes (much to their disgust).

I also think its worth noting that 18 in movie terms means a lot more than 18 in video game terms. It’s still a voluntary system in the UK, with only the most extreme of games having to go up in front of censors. The game companies get a lot more media exposure, hype and sales for an 18.

This doesn’t alter the fact that we, as parents, have ignored the recommendations and allowed our boys to play CoD games before. Even the ones rated 15 are ‘too old’ for boys aged 11 and 13, despite their maturity.

Which leaves me on slippery footing. We know that our boys are not changing their behaviours due to a couple of hours war-gaming of a weekend. But am I being a ‘good’ parent by not stopping them playing an over-age game that involves killing?

It’s a decision I can delay at least a little longer. The game isn’t out until next month.

What would you do?

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October 22, 2010 · 8:34 am

New specs lasted four hours

WE picked up Billy’s new glasses last week. Despite this grumpy expression, he really was delighted with them.

His old pair had broken so many times, the lady in the opticians attempted one last repair so we could keep them for spare. We’ve had four new pairs in a year.

By morning break the day after collecting them, the new pair were mangled. They had flown off Billy’s face in some freak playground accident and someone trod on them the moment they hit the ground. Specs leg, nose pad and lens all busted. Billy was inconsolable.

At least we had a spare pair. But they lasted a day before one of his brothers managed to snap the leg off again during the usual bouts of sibling wrestling. I was dreading the call to the opticians. . .again.

Thankfully they are perfectly used to children’s glasses getting battered, and they can replace them for free within a certain time period. With an NHS prescription, you get a new pair for free each year from a selection or can put the value of the £35 voucher towards a pricier pair.

Still, now his ‘spare pair’ have one wobbly leg tied on with fuse wire, it’s probably time to actually buy some.

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October 20, 2010 · 5:18 pm

Getting all political on your ass

HOW much more can any of us tighten our belts? There can’t be any parent who hasn’t had to watch the pennies in the past few years of redundancies and recession.
Yet the way the government speaks you’d think we were all rolling in it. Today’s Big Announcement didn’t help.  All this drip, drip of guesswork about what’s getting the axe became real, through the snappily-titled Comprehensive Spending Review.
Don’t be conned by stories about single mums on benefits. Or tales of unemployed families who have lots of children. This is propaganda. Its purpose is to make people who work and pay taxes and scrimp and save have someone easy to blame.
Osborne, the multi-millionaire Chancellor is saying: “We have to see this through.” Cameron talks of “Being in this together.” Nah, I don’t buy it. This is about Jim and Jo Average having to bail out the coalition while demonising anyone who claims from the state.
That includes the stay-at-home mum whose husband earns just enough for her to swap the 9-5 for finger-painting and cupcake-making.
They could claw back billions by closing tax loopholes and making the banks, the real culprits for the deficit, pay more. Public spending did not cause this mess, banking did. When they all crashed, thousands became unemployed, less people paid taxes, everyone stopped spending.
This is politics.
The truth is that YOU have to see it through, fellow parents. Those who know you can’t make ends meet without working every hour you can logistically manage. Those on just about an average wage with kids in average schools driving average cars.
And you’re right, it’s not your fault, but it’s not the fault of everyone claiming benefits either. Yes, certainly something needs to be done about benefit cheats – not all people on benefits.
Take a trip down to your local magistrates’ court and you’ll have your eyes opened to the reality of benefit fraud, unemployment and alcoholism. There you’ll see the Shameless generation: people repeatedly getting fined for fraud, paying £2 a month instalments from the benefit they still get, then being back in court for missing the payments.
This is nothing new though, it’s been happening for centuries. It’s just people are less embarrassed to admit to it.
Would you rather pay £1 extra tax each month towards a single parent with children under 5 whose partner has left them to start a shiny new family, or to the lazy 20-something mummy’s boy sitting in his bedroom on his Xbox expecting his first job to pay him £30k?
How can you attack the welfare state simply because you have a sense of it “not being fair?” There are single parents of school-aged children who get their mortgage interest paid for by the state as long as they DON’T get a job. They know that getting a part-time job to fit around the school hours will simply not provide the same income that being job-less will. That’s not fair, but if you just stop paying it tomorrow, aren’t you then just forcing the children out of their homes and the parents into even more of a poverty trap? It’s an impossible situation.
So what do the poor Averages do? They’ve been on the same salary for years, as bosses insist ad nauseam  that times are too tight for an annual rise, whilst squirrelling away their own massive share options in their wives’ names.
How many parents can really still say their love their job and feel secure that they’ll keep it? How many more are exhausted, just doing whatever they can to pay for the pared-down weekly shop, stopping their kids’ out-of-school activities, selling anything they can on eBay to pay for Christmas?
Is it fair that they are the ones who will see reductions in tax credits, family allowance and pension contributions?
And don’t see this rant as a sign that I’m just some raving Leftie. I don’t believe there are any politicians, of any party, who really know what the hell to do, except for finding someone to blame.

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October 16, 2010 · 2:34 pm

I’m allergic to cheap roofing felt

Bloke and I actually did something together last weekend. We re-felted the roof of the garden shed.
The shed was inherited with the house, and while I’d love to say I use it solely for gardening, it’s inevitably become a dumping ground for anything we don’t want in the house. Lawnmower, kids bikes, portable loo bucket for camping, several paddling pools and various sports equipment. In short, it’s a tip. It’s also warped at the back, but as we can’t see it, we don’t worry about it.

Yes, this is the 'After' shot

It’s also, most inconveniently, in the sunniest spot in our north-facing spot. Really, we need to replace it, but sheds are expensive and Bloke and I are not really shed-putting-together-types. He scoffed when I said we could sell the old one on Ebay and the buyer would come and dismantle it and take it away. “People don’t do that, do they? What a pain.”
So when the roofing felt finally came adrift and was flapping around, letting water in, I bought the cheapest roofing felt (still £17) and we made time to put it on. It was ridiculous. The felt ripped like paper every time you tried to move it, the nails ran out, and I hadn’t had the intelligence to buy the can of £10 roofing felt adhesive that I had seen but had ignored.
Still, it’s better than before, for now anyway. I’m pretty sure the first heavy rain and windy conditions will have the whole lot off again.

Oh, and if you end up having to do the same yourself, wear gloves. Bloke and I both had swollen sore hands afterwards, which we think was something to do with the toxic coating. Yuk.

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October 15, 2010 · 9:07 am

It’s not the size of your pumpkin, it’s what you do with it

Obviously my pumpkin is so large it didn't fit in this photo

IT’S harvest festival time. Time to raid the back of your cupboards and send your offspring off to school with a can of chick peas and a pack of cup-a-soup – preferably not out-of-date.

It’s a terrible thing, how half-hearted you get after throwing several children through the education system.

With your first child, in their first year of school, you’re brilliant. You’re efficient. You bake cakes for the fête rather than buy them. You turn up on time for everything, try your hardest to read with them every night, analyse their every comment about what they did that day and worry endlessly that you aren’t doing something right and are going to stunt their education forever.

Then by the time they start their second year, you’ve chilled out a little, realised that the staff pretty much know what they are doing. You get more into the routine – parents evenings, outings, library books, PTA events, the nativity – it’s been done for decades and it works.

That’s not to say you neglect your second/third/fourth children. Far from it. I loved Billy’s harvest festival assembly last week just as much as when my elder two boys took part in years gone by. You can’t stop yourself grinning, trying to wave at them from the back of the hall, and mouthing their lines when it’s their turn to speak on stage.

Billy’s enthusiasm for his class’s harvest festival assembly re-ignited my enthusiasm. This time, I wouldn’t send Billy with a tin of sardines for the food parcels for the homeless and elderly. I was going to send in a proper harvest. From my overgrown allotment. A genuine sacrifice for those less fortunate.

UNfortunately, harvest festival came a little late in the season, which meant the offerings weren’t exactly, er, supermarket-pristine. There were misshapen carrots, proudly grown and picked by Billy. The last of the (probably a little stringy) runner beans, a courgette, too many green chillies (put in a sealed bag marked ‘CHILLIES!’ to avoid any painful curiosity) and the piece de resistance, one of the three ripe pumpkins being saved for Halloween. Billy made me carry it, partly because he didn’t want to drop it going across the playground, mostly because it was heavy.

When I arrived at the assembly, I found myself peering at the stage, searching not for my gorgeous, excited seven-year-old son, but for the pumpkin. I thought, ignorantly, that it might be the only one. No, face it Hilary, other parents can grow things too.

My fellow mums tried to help: “Is it that orange one at the back?” suggested one. No, too wrinkly. “That other orange one? “That greeny-orange one with the pointy stalk?” No, I’m sure mine was much bigger. Oh, no, that’s it. Nothing special, nothing massive and impressive. Probably not enough for a decent vat of soup at the Hope Centre. I’ll have to do better next year. Or stick to the sardines.

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