School Report

I didn't get time to write this up in the Christmas rush, but here is the report on R's school report.

I dressed myself in a hat pulled down and a scarf pulled up and went to the school with trepidation in my heart and the words of R ringing in my ears:  "Just agree with everything they say and don't say anything".

(I was forced to venture into the school and make cursory contact with a teacher because they do not let the pupils take home their own reports and must verify that the document in question has passed safely into the hands of the parent/guardian).

The teacher was young and charming and seemed perfectly pleased about R.  She asked me if I had any questions.  I said that the full set of scores was admirably presented on Pronote the marking website,  thank you very much.

For the sake of balance, she pointed out that he was a bit "fragile"  in French.  Controlling myself admirably, I asked her what she meant by this.  She meant that the calculation of his marks added up to an 'avarage' score of 9 out of 20.  I asked her why this was.  She did not know.  I asked her what the French teacher had said about him.  She said she had not spoken to the French teacher.   So I gave her my interpretation and went a bit off track on the failings of the French Education System (shut up shut up shut up) and how hard it was for him to start at a school he had never been allowed to visit and with no-one to show him round (shut up shut up), predicted that R Will Do Better Next Time and that I counted on the school to let me know if there was a problem or anything else I should be doing.  She agreed, and said that it was not noticeable that R was new to the school or the system.  Which just goes to show what a trusty and hardy invididual R is.

I soon realised that R is quite right;  they do not go in for individual attention or care at all.    As long as the scores are adequate, sickness absence and bad behaviour are within the norms, the boxes are ticked and everything is generally ticking along tickety boo there won't be any trouble.

Left feeling quite relieved.  R has a General Avarage of 16 out of 20, which is Jolly Good, our team effort has paid off.

School jinks

After overhearing a few heated phone conversations it has become clear to me that R has a homework scam going.  One night it is his turn to do the homework, and transmit the results by phone to his friend, the next night the friend does the homework and transmits by phone to R.  Sometimes the phone calls take place within minutes of leaving for school on the morning that the homework is due.

What are the moral issues?  For the most part, the homework which is set could be done by a robot, contains no trace of individuality or originality, is an exercise in absolute obedience and a question of right or wrong one-pointed answers which is mind-numbingly tedious to do and doesn't teach you anything.

I've decided to think of this as a healthy display of native cunning in a mad world, a coping strategy, a prolongued trust exercise...learning to deal with stress.

However, the cooperative relationship is clearly tainted, yesterday morning (while he was putting on his coat) some pretty heavy blackmail was being applied by telephone (you only get the maths if I get the picture).  He only just made it under the fence.

I asked R:  "Don't you feel tired and stressed living this life of last minute deception?"

He huffed a bit, then he turned to me and smiled;  "No, I like it, it makes the blood circulate".

Oh dear.

Raclette!

It's winter, in France it is the season of La Raclette, and serious French families equip themselves with one of these:

Non-stick raclette set with top grilling option

La raclette is Cook's Delight because not only is it easy to prepare, but like barbecues, it seems to be a male domain.

Males involved in food preparation

To buy:   Raclette cheese ready sliced (take care to get unpasteurised if possible and check for ferocious list of  E numbers, not necessary, not healthy and not a good sign), selection of charcuterie (such as cooked ham from Paris,  raw ham from Bayonne, saucisson, or salami, mortadella ham (Italian Spam) whatever takes your fancy (vegetarians, those with high cholesterol, weep).   Some good organic potatoes which can be cooked in skin.

Note bubbling cheese in triangular receptacle, to the left, wooden scrapers, spuds in saucepan bottom right and cheese and charcuterie on its way towards being prettily arranged...(and small glass of organic Chardonnay)

Method:
Get someone to cut rind off the cheese slices and arrange prettily on a plate, and someone else to open  the charcuterie and arrange prettily on a plate.  Boil potatoes in skin and serve in cooking pan (yes!).  Persuade someone to get non-stick raclette set out of the cupboard and clean off dust.  Turn on.  Invite members of family to put their own cheese slice in the triangular receptacle provided, insert it under grill, and when bubbling remove, scrape out with wooden scraper on top of boiled potatoes and charcuterie of choice.  Voila, as the French say.

Advice for Feeding Birds

I have never seen the birds so hungry, a mountain of sunflower seeds was moved in a day.  It's been a bad season for berries and seeds.  My mother said that in the cold winter of '63 half of all British birds died.

I am moved to act, I love to watch the birds feed.   In the snow they are all puffed up and round.

I asked some advice on how best to feed the birds in the cold weather, from my mum, lifelong member of the RSPB and sensible cove:

Blackbirds and soft bills like fruit – manky apples cut in half as some don’t seem to know how to get through the skin or you can spike them onto branches

Shelled sunflower seed for those who cannot cling like tits,  whole sunflower for the tits (I suppose they will go for the shelled ones if they have the choice)

Good quality seeds for birds (cheap ones mainly wheat which almost nobody eats)

Leftover bread (wholegrain if poss) dipped in sunflower oil (fat helps to keep warm)

Leftover culinary seeds and dried fruits

Thawed water

Dining at our table so far this winter:  crowds of chaffinches, flying visits from gangs of starlings and greenfinches (all of which we don't usually see), dear old sparrows, great and blue tits, robin, jenny wren, collared doves...

Snow FrenchSchool-Style

Take one small prison yard, 600 pupils and 10 centimetres of snow, and what do you get?

Yesterday R came home from school, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright with past glories and an irrepressable small smile on his face:

"School was AWESOME..."  (I hate this word but I report it as it was told).

"...There was the greatest ever snowball fight.  They put up barriers and sprayed the area with salt and water and said we could not go there...the barriers were all smashed, Everyone went everywhere..."

I said:  "What about the people who did not want to join in a snowball fight?"

"They all huddled together under a small shelter so they were an easy target.  Even the headmistress got one in the face (wheezes with laughter).    In the end they had to spray everything with salt and water..."

He lies back on the sofa,  licks his lips, closes his eyes and grins in post-vent ecstacy.

Wild Snowmancat

Wild Snowmancat at dawn
With solid ice bowl brimming with snow
Created by artists
Aged 15, 17 and 18

Real cat, lightly traumatised
Appears on the scene
Wild!

Made in Chelsea Rehab

The True Story of How I Fell Into Addiction and Nearly Ruined my Domestic Life

Some people will find it hard to believe, but until recently I was a reality TV virgin.  I lived in a France, a media backwater.  One day, on a whim, my husband and I exchanged our television for a rectangular Zen lamp which looked  like a television.  This lasted for seven years.

When we did get a small television, we had no cable, no satellite, and no time to watch it.  When the children started to grow up, still, somehow, watch-for-free internet TV passed me by.

It started after my son installed Ex Pat Shield on my computer.  For 15 years I had not touched English television, I hadn't even wanted to, but now I could finally access English TV channels.   At first it was under control, Young Drs and Houses under the Hammer from time to time, it didn't interfere with my normal life.    But then Channel 4 became available and I could watch a whole range of fly on the wall documentaries and fly on the wall documentary-style comedies.  It wasn't long before I was looking for something stronger, and one evening I decided to try Made in Chelsea.

The rush was immediate:  these people were actually acting out a pantomime of their own lives!  I was immediately hooked on the camera angles at eye level with back-lit champagne glasses, the polished appearances, the sheer, seemless vanity, the savage bitchery under the heading  'obviously I didn't want to hurt you...' and the ultimate condemnation of bad bahaviour:   "not cool.".

Bird of prey

My desire to find out when Caggie and Spencer would get together was enough to keep me going back for 3 seasons.  When they kissed the sheer raw intimacy brought tears to my eyes. ( My person theory is that off-screen they are married with two kids and just pretending to be split up and off the rails).  Soon I could barely manage to hoover the stairs before having 'a little rest' in front of Made in Chelsea and I was buying my husband take-away meals and passing them off as home cooked so I could watch"just one more episode."

It's hard to explain, but when I did tear myself away from the screen, I was still feeling spaced out and rather strange - I  hadn't totally left Chelsea behind.  It was as though my life wasn't real, and Made in Chelsea was, and I know it sounds stupid, but on some level I believed I was part of the show.  I talked to the characters as if I knew them.  When I wasn't actually watching them on TV, their faces and their intimate lives performed upon my inward eye.  In my own personal Inner Reality Show, I had 'feelings for', 'fancied' or was 'really gud friends yah' with all the boys.  The bit where Fredrik was 'hanging out in the park' topless was the thrill highlight of my year.  I imagined that my hair was long and glossy, my legs were long and limp, that I too could catwalk hanging on the arm of an expensive handbag.   (This has even resulted in some rather inappropriate wardrobe additions).  I half expected to be texted the details of a date on my (non-existant) mobile phone, or to be invited to join the girls as they trailed the rails of the Glamour Magazine fashion cupboard in search of 'something to wear' for an exciting event.  My accent went up a couple of notches on the social scale.  The truth is I'm nearly fifty, overweight, married with two children and have not been invited to a party since 1998. I had to face it;  I was living vicariously through this show.

It was for me utterly spellbinding to see what happens to people with the money influence and the leisure time to do what they want, buying themselves out of their problems and failing to learn from them, and I'm beginning to realise that similar people are running the country.

Please don't wax your chests

I'm pretty certain that by the time they are 35 the lifestyle of drink and indolence will have wrecked their looks.  I see the beginnings of noses and necks thickened and red,  mouths and bellies slack, eyes pouchy and  faces bitter, and I know that even the most expensive surgical intervention couldn't put them back together again, but still I'm a believer.  I'm still consumed by questions such as:   why do they tell their secrets and bitch about their friends, in front of the camera, and then seem genuinely shocked that their secret is out?

Nowadays I do realise I have a problem and I have cut down.  I've started cooking again and the stairs are clean.  But I know that now I've tried it, the temptation will always be there.  I try not to think about it, but I'm asking myself:  what will I do when I reach the end of season 4?

It's a bit awkward.

It's lame.