Schools - is it me or are they all mad?

I'm trying to be positive, really I am. I've done turning 40, done the longest hardest winter EVER, done the youngest starting school and the consequent who/what/where am I now thing, I've even done the plumber-induced house flood wreckage and attempted life-coaching to help with the ensuing negative thinking. I've tried really, really hard not to sweat the small stuff (despite the hormones making this a virtual impossibility) BUT...

Why is it that I seem to be among a tiny percentage of the good ol' British populace who finds school when you're a parent even more of a pain in the butt than school was when I was a child? What has happened to our schools, our sanity, our great educational prowess?

We still have the worst educational standard in virtually the whole of Europe, our teenagers leave unable to spell, read, write so that others can understand them, or do any form of mental maths but at least we can all rest safely in the knowledge that they comply to health and safety guidelines.
Like not wearing open-toed sandals in hot weather so they can't hurt their toes in the playground (or wearing them with socks, as in the case of our school). Or sitting within a five-mile radius of a peanut in case they end up in anaphylactic shock. Or stroking a dog in case they get an allergic reaction. Or playing in the snow in case they fall and the parents sue. Or playing in the sun in case they get sun stroke and parents sue. Or sitting under the wrong sort of tree. Or eating and moving at the same time. AAAARGH!

Is it me? Is it?

So why is it then, that when a school can no longer even administrate an asthma inhaler, or hand out an aspirin, or give a child a dose of their 3x a day antibiotic medicine, they can suddenly all start using a defibrillator in the case of aid to someone keeling over with a heart attack?

Now I know that we're not talking about the ER pads (Stand clear!) favoured by many a medical emergency telly prog. I know that. This is a machine that tells you exactly what needs doing and how, Holy Grail of the BHF no less. And I know that about 30% of heart attacks don't make it to hospital by the time the paramedics have arrived and loaded them up. But I do know that the rate of heart attacks in children aged 4-11 is hardly a major issue - although apparently the fatter we get the more it will be. BUT...

Under-the-tax-limit working mums unite!

Ok, I don't get it. School starts back and the weather gets warm...

So, here we go again. Back to those happy days of endless paperwork to sign/fill in/remember to return by specified date; back to newsletters informing us parents how rubbish we all are at everything; back to packing a lunch for your child and wondering if it'll end up being inspected by a government nutritionist (not to mention whether your child will actually eat it) and back to trolling up and down to school wondering if your car will get impounded even though you don't think you're breaking any laws and every Volvo XC90/BMW X5/Landcruiser/Pajero etc seems to be taking up coach-sized spaces in the entire vicinity of the school gates.
Is it me, or am I the only person who actually enjoys being free of all this during the summer holidays?

And now, the second child has started too. After 9 years of having small children accompany me everywhere I go, I am now the mother of two kids at school. And it feels pretty wierd, too. I haven't adjusted yet. Like my looming 40th birthday (pause to sob and enter new phase of denial), I'm taking the journey by the scenic route, so to speak.
Not that I have a lot of choice. Not only is our school the only school I know of that has no before or after-school clubs, it's also the only one that stretches out the starting school bit for a whole term. More specifically, I drop both kids off for 9 (in the alloted ten-minute window), go back at 12 for the youngest and then go back at 3.15 for the eldest. And I do this from September to December. And the government want more mothers to work. And that's without the 13-odd weeks you need to cover the school holidays.
Yeah, I know loads of jobs outside working in a school that will accommodate that. Or pay me enough to afford someone else to do it. That's why I'm an under-the-tax-limit worker from home.
Happy New Term, Gordon. And thanks.

On summer festivals and one's inner Gordon Ramsay...

They called it the Glastonbury of the East, aka the East Anglian Latitude festival. Home to about 4 million teenagers and far too many Boden parents. There's something about Southwold, Suffolk and the Kensington-on-Sea set. Which is odd, because no one goes to London from Suffolk and starts trying to convert everything to something a little more 'hedgemumbly'.
Anyway, it's taken me this long to recover. And we only stayed one night. But I felt it imperative to record to empty cyberspace my personal fire/bath highlights of the whole thing - perhaps best exhibited by a list of do's and don'ts'

Don't take children who spent a week recovering from a sick bug anywhere, let alone a Glastonbury-esque festival, and if you do, don't camp.

Don't expect it to be anything like the experiences you had pre-kids, ie hedonistic summer fun.

Do make the effort to find the family area - hence avoiding pitching next to sneering teenagers/2am teenagers/shagging or 'who's that c**t snoring'-shouting at 6am teenagers.

Do take a portaloo. I could go on for hours about the toilets. (And I spent time in the arse end of nowhere in Africa pissing on cockroaches for three months, so I'm not exactly doing an Anthea Turner here.)

Don't expect to part with anything less than your monthly mortgage payment (and that's just on food and drink).

Don't expect to feel anything other than Gandalf-like in the presence of Young People bearing signs saying things like 'Old People - No!'.

Do prepare yourself for the Inner Gordon revelation you will have about yourself.

Do expect to understand what people mean when they say that the closer you get to 40 the more your body knows it.

Don't eat anything that will make you need a No 2. (Eggs every meal for a week beforehand may help).

Don't stay the night that your Arthritic Son has to take Methotrexate. Unless you are Mother Theresa reincarnate.

Having said all that, the bits that were enjoyable were great. The bits that weren't... well, let's just say, we were all in the car with the tent packed by 10pm on Saturday night - 3 of us in tears. Yet again, Slack Mother learns that while she may think Arthritic Son is just tired like his school mates, he is actually a child on mild chemotherapy. So much for those DLA forms that tell me we're not entitled to any more financial assistance because he can now walk around and use his limbs again - not needing 'any more assistance than a normal child his age.' And yes, I do know about the people who diddle the system, and yes, I would like an hour in a trapped lift with them.

But hey. It's the end of school today, so what am I whining about? Now it's just the holidays to get through - and like zillions of other parents lured into a false sense of security by last summer's summer, we're going away for two weeks. To the Norfolk Coast, where it has been monsooning since about last February. One wooden bungalow, four boys, potential flooding and (if like the rains of 99) a backed-up toilet. Just don't ask me to donate any organs if I die there. I intend to consume enough wine to inflate my liver to the size of a small Virgin island. Oh, and sod the government's recommendations, it's cirrhosis or homicide. Which would they prefer?

Of Schools and Sick...

Back to normality. It's almost the end of term and everyone is knackered. Consequently, the school ups the ante and ensures we're all mental and emotional wrecks for the holidays. Teachers are sadists, I don't care what anyone says. They always have been, they always will be. If it's not Sports Day (fair enough - it is allegedly the summer), it's school trips, or assemblies, or leavers plays, or prize givings or discos or school fayres or organ donation...

Talking of which, we did two of those last week. Sports Day on Friday didn't get cancelled - much to my chagrin - which entailed standing around in the wind/rain/sleet and watching plastic eggs get blown off spoons with a pre-schooler whinging for Britain. Just as we are leaving, and I'm elatedly telling everyone how within half an hour I shall be sinking my teeth into a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, whingy pre-schooler blows chunks everywhere. Great. Journey home in the car was nice. He continues to offer up the contents of his stomach as sacrifice to any sanity I might have had remaining for the rest of the night, stopping at about 11pm. Very considerate, although Husband and I barely slept anyway - waiting as you do for the inevitable tap-tapping of the 3am puke-dripping-down-floorboard scenario.

Next day is the school fayre. It was sunny (shock!), the kids were happy and the Exorcist Child not puking, so we went mad and virtually remortgaged the house to pay for endless tombolas, tattoos, second-hat tat and all the usual school fair shmutter. We even got the paddling pool out in the afternoon, such was the unencumbered joy of a bit of sun. Arthritic Son, however, decided it was his turn to whinge. And then, at 12am precisely, to start with the whole chunk-blowing routine. For 13 hours. Oh, how I love the old Methotrexate. It does so liven up anything to do with immune systems, no? We wade through Sunday and its associated bleaching/laundry fest and manage to get to bed early only to have Husband up at 2am performing the Huey & Ralph opera. Cue Monday. Both kids off school/nursery, both parents doing a pretty exceptional imitation of what might happen to you if you decided to downsize on frontal lobe activity and eat cryptosperidium at the same time.

It was supposed to be our 'chilling out' weekend. This weekend (pause to sob and wring hands in despair) we are off Camping at a 'family' festival (an oxymoron if ever I heard one). This being my life - and my life being the sort of bath/fire thing already talked of in this blog - I am staying open-minded. I may be gone some time....

It might as well rain until September...

Heard that on the radio the other day and thought, well, yes. Seeing as we now know it's going to. It's monsooning even as I speak, warm and cosy now that I swapped my sandals for socks and boots.

But I'm not going to moan on about the weather, no indeedy - not when I have 4x4s to get my teeth into. This weather, these floods and mudslides, it's their time, isn't it? So why is it that the Bodens who pay through the nose for some semi-aquatic mountain-munching Posemobile - while conveniently showing the rest of society they are a) higher up, literally, than them and b) loaded - drive them like they're in a gold-plated golf buggy? Oh, I could go on. And on. Perhaps it's because they seem to have multiplied recently in the rain, like mosquito larvae do. And cryptosperidium.

While I'm at it, I'd quite like to have a go at the media as well. Perhaps if they hadn't told us all through the winter how fantastic the summer was going to be, we might not be feeling quite as cheated as we are. Some baboon was on TV this morning telling people how not to get depressed about the weather. Great coming from a man who had clearly just come back off holiday (permatan) and has a great job telling other people the Secrets of Recognising the Blatantly Bloody Obvious (if you watch too much telly and don't see anyone, you'll get depressed). I particularly appreciate the fact he obviously has about as much understanding of life indoors with small frustrated children as my doorbell.
All of which leads me to believe it's the media that 's the biggest problem, not the weather.

P.S. There is one other problem with the damp that I am quietly doing a little research into. Arthritic Son is not doing so well in this weather and has complained several times of pain in his knees. This is unusual for the summer months. Perhaps if anyone else out there (yeah, I know, like anyone ever reads this...) has any arthritic thangs going on, they'd let me know.

Wet, wet, wet...

it is now a week since I last wrote and it still hasn't stopped raining, making it officially the wettest June on record. Poor old Sheffield, my student home, is a lake, South Yorkshire itself is becoming like a Hollywood disaster movie (we can't let that dam break, goddamit!) and people have even died. So, youd' be thinking, don't start off on one Angela, you're not doing so badly.

And I'm not. Here in the People's Republic of East Anglia, we are getting off reasonably lightly - if you don't count the cryptosperidium infiltration to a couple of areas. And the endlessly flooded roads. Or the life-sapping damp. Or cold. Or the Japanese torture-like effect of having to listen to the endless rain drumming into your brain like a stroke. There haven't even been any medical emergencies of late - save for one pelvic scan (normal) to see if cysts might be the reason I'm mutating into Brian Blessed since I hit my thirties. Or account for the crippling pain of ovulating. But no. (Still, at least I can number knowing yet another area of my local hospital. Which is great - I now even know which waiting rooms have the best magazines/comfiest chairs.)

However. There is one thing. I'm talking to you, 4x4 owners. Perhaps someone could enlighten me - why is it that you buy a car specifically designed for trekking across Nepalese mountains/through lakes and yet you can't pull over on to a two-foot high bank when the weeny little country roads in Britain get a bit damp and muddy? Don't get me wrong - I was raised on a farm and I know the need for a landrover on a field or for transporting livestock, or even just to fit the dogs in when one is checking one's land. I don't mind if you have big dogs, or a horse box. But if I have to smack my head on the roof of my car while trying to manoevre my Focus so that Mrs Boden doesn't get mud on the wheels of her gargantuan Volvo one more time, I shall not be responsible for my actions. You paid for the wretched planet rapist. Now USE IT!

Global Warming? Bring it On!

Oh, that's going to make me popular, I can tell. But let me put my case first...

It's currently the middle of June and I actually cannot remember the last time we had more than one day without rain since April, when it was freakily dry for almost an entire month. It has rained and rained and rained and rained. My lawn is like the Everglades, my roses are composting on the bush. It's rained so much that if I were an M&S advert, I'd now be breathing huskily and coming over all sotto voce and sexily Irish to tell you that 'This is not just rain, this is full-on Kenyan Bush, green-up-the-desert January monsoon rain...'. You get the picture. (And I live in South Norfolk where we still have drainage. People in Yorkshire are floating around their living rooms trying to salvage their children as I write this.)

So much for flaming June. I've barely hung anything out on the washing line and only just turned the heating off. Which means I have no way of getting anything dry without using the drier, which in turn makes me feel that I'm stamping on the planet's face with the biggest carbon Doc Martens I can find. Ironically, when it rains it's not too cold, but when it's not raining it's like February. Consequently, with all the sweat/shiver dichotomies going on, plus the wet, airless, damp classrooms/cars/offices we all cram ourselves into, viruses are breeding like rabbits. And mutating like Mixie rabbits. So everyone's ill. If it's not the flu/cough virus it's the throat or the D&V or the Lurid Running Snot bug peculiar to kids.

Now. Don't get me wrong. I know that years ago people just dealt with this. Years ago no one had tumble driers. Years ago no one was hyper-clean enough to get simple bacterial/viral bugs that didn't actually kill or disfigure you in some way. Anyone over 50 will happily tell me this. BUT. Years ago they didn't have enough clothes to warrant washing more than once a week; years ago they were begging for sanitation to wipe out childhood killer diseases, and years ago, they did not have the bloody media ramming down their necks what a great summer it was going to be.
I mean, look at it. In April, the sun shone and that was it. All the stuff on the news about how this would be the hottest summer on record (again. Can it be the hottest summer EVERY year?), how the elderly were all going to die in droves unless they watched GMTV and picked up the latest how-to-keep-cool advice, how the nation would soon be swapping good old English flowers and veg for grape vines and olives, and how taxidermy would soon be the only way we'll get to admire most British wildlife.
I even had a letter from Arthritic Son's rheumatology team informing me, due to the warning of the hottest summer ever, that the Methotrexate means we must remember to be extra Sun Safe with him. Which, should the sun ever bother to make another appearance, of course I will. It's just classic that yesterday he had a school trip and on the list of things he needed was 'wellies, a raincoat and a sun hat'.

Also, I do my bit for the planet (yes, actually, I do - I am a 4-bin woman, a recycling queen and I'd give anything for abusing 4x4s and the drivers of to be made legal) but I can't help thinking that the planet does do a bit of its own thing anyway. I mean, I live in Norfolk and once upon a time it used to home to woolly mammoths. Before that, volcanoes. I was alive in 1976 when the entire country turned savannah, and stranded by the summer floods eight years ago - the reason I bought my first ever mobile phone.
So, is it me?