Today was the first time that I’ve babysat both the children together. I have Squiffany regularly, but if Dilly is going out for more than an hour or two, she will probably need to feed the baby so she’d rather take him than have to hurry back. This morning, however, she had an appointment and wanted me to hold the fort for an hour or so.

It was remarkably easy. Pugsley lay on his back playing with toys for a while, then sat on my knee. Then he sat on his sister’s lap while she sat on mine. We read a book (The Three Little Pigs, in French, a little to my bemusement) and tickled each other a bit.

Later, Dilly and Pugsley went out for lunch and Squiffany and I had a good day together. She demonstrated her ability to count to ten – this is a new development, she was only reliable to five last week. Dilly credits Al with their daughter’s large vocabulary; he is a born teacher. When his brother was about two, ten-year-old Al taught him addition and subtraction in the conservatory, using flowerpots.

She had tomato soup, pasta, scrambled eggs and a clementine for lunch. She shared the pasta with Tilly the dog. “Here you are, Tilly, nice and warm, not too hot,” she said, putting a piece on the chair next to her for me to flick on the floor.

After lunch, we went shopping. First to see Daddy, then to the chemist to buy cream to make Granny beautiful (never too late, hey) and make-up for disguise in case it didn’t work. Then off to the Co-op. I’d told Squiffany that I hadn’t any wine and “If I don’t drink wine, what will I be able to drink?” “Whisky,” she replied helpfully.

I told her father. “Will Granny need a little wine, or lots and lots?” he asked her. “Lots and lots,” she confirmed. “Does Granny drink a little wine or too much?” “Too much wine” she replied predictably.

I’m getting clues here about what my family say about me behind my back. They tease, of course. I do not drink too much. Ever.

I was waiting at traffic lights in Norwich this afternoon when my eye was caught by two figures ahead of me, dressed in red coats. They were little old ladies, backs bent with osteoporosis and for a moment I thought they were walking hand in hand, until I realised they each held one handle of their shopping bag. Then I noticed they were wearing matching headscarves, decorated with bright flowers on a white background and that their coats were not just similar but identical. Feeling a bit spooked, I looked them up and down. Indeed, their shoes were exactly the same too.

The lights changed. I looked as I drove past, trying to see their faces, but their heads were lowered and partly obscured by their scarves, so that all I could see were similar beaky noses.

Surely they are sisters, maybe twins? I imagine them as spinsters, who have lived together all their lives, doing everything together. Now, similarly affected by crumpling bones, they support and rely on each other, so close that they even choose to dress exactly the same.

I told Al. He thinks it is rather lovely. I find it a bit creepy. Yes, comforting for them in a way, for they have never been lonely, but unsettling too and more than a little unnatural.

Is it a natural male/female divide? Or a mother/anyone else one? Or maybe it’s just me.

I’m untidy. By inclination and by choice, I live in more-or-less chaos. I’d find it quite unsettling to have everything in exactly its proper place, every cushion plumped and each surface clear.

On the other hand, I have a inbuilt clutterometer that starts to sound an alarm when a certain degree of overload is reached. For example, let’s say that a member if the family is doing some paperwork. I think that it’s entirely reasonable to leave it out to finish the next day, even if it spreads all over the table and seeps onto the floor. A half-done jigsaw or Lego edifice was treated with similar tolerance when my children were younger. However, if it’s still there weeks later, untouched, gathering dust, it’s going to get cleared away – by its owner if he’s there or by me if it’s in my way. Naturally, if I do the clearing, however festooned it had become with grimy cobwebs, that would be the day it would be required and lamentations would assuredly follow.

Whatever housework is done around here is normally done by me. When my children lived at home they and the Sage helped, but nowadays if I don’t do it it isn’t likely to get done at all. The exception is the dishwasher, which is filled or emptied by whoever is around, and recently, as I’ve been busy, the Sage has emptied it most often.

Today, I fetched a glass and cut open a couple of oranges. “Would you like some orange juice?” I asked Ro. He said yes please, so I squeezed the juice, poured it into the glass and gave it to him. The Sage didn’t want any juice, but he was by the cupboard. “Would you get me another glass, please?” He took out a pint tumbler. “Sorry, there aren’t any smaller glasses.”

Now, I’m not a fussy person, but that was all wrong. I couldn’t put the juice of two oranges into a pint pot. I couldn’t (at an appropriate time of day) have drunk wine out of it, either. I went to the cupboard, reached (no need to move them) behind the pint glasses and took out a wine glass.

To return to my question at the start. Is it a male thing or what? First, why could he not see that there were smaller glasses behind the big one? Second, and I have explained this now, when I put glasses away, I automatically group them. A front-to-back row of similar type. I am emphatically untidy, disorganised, casual, but this seems normal to me.

The Sage was impressed by my reasoning and has assured me he will follow my example in future. But I’ve always done it and quietly tidied up after him, for to mention it except when the moment presents itself as it did today, would be the action of a bore and a nag. And in nearly 34 years, he had never noticed.

Why?

I’m at a loss to make today sound interesting.

I’d planned to work all morning, but when Dilly rang up for advice, as a bird had fallen down the chimney in Squiffany’s room and was trapped in the covered-up fireplace, I was quick to leave my desk and go to help. I played with the children while the Sage and Dilly released the starling from its prison.

Some time later, after tea and more play, I went back and did a bit of work. Haircut this afternoon, followed by a meeting with the Health and Safety inspector, who was relaxed and helpful.

And that’s about it.

Two more items gave me pleasure. I have been happily browsing through the Aldeburgh Festival programme, deciding which concerts to go to. I’ll be going on my own I expect, but in June, so at least it’ll be light and summery (well, it was last June).

And I received a cheque from the Inland Revenue. £132.94. Champagne tonight, oh yes.

If you are waiting for news of Valentine Day events, bear in mind that every day here is filled with romance and such fluffiness does not wait for a special day.

I spent the afternoon and evening making marmalade. Three batches, twenty-one pots. I feel quite steamy, yet tired. What a pity I don’t like early nights. The thought of a lazy hour or two reading in bed sounds so good, yet never works for me. Lying uncomfortably on one side, one eye closed to keep the book in focus, or else on my back, bearing the weight of a hefty hardback in my chilly fingers – neither quite works.

Nor does going to sleep. Two hours early to bed means nervous wakefulness by 3 am. Too early to get up, but sufficiently rested to be unable to doze off again until a glance at the clock tells me it is not absurdly early to start the day. That sends me off all right. Into a heavy and dreamless slumber, until woken by Radio 4 into bleariness that lasts the whole morning.

No. I will rouse myself and enter into bright and witty conversation with my husband. Heh heh. Poor man. He’s probably just winding down for the evening. He hasn’t a chance…

Comments from yesterday’s post – “15 minute lessons? How can children learn anything if they have to stop every fifteen minutes? And how’s that going to prepare them for the real world out there?”
I also think that less able pupils will be equally less able to understand interest rates as they are to understand integration and differentiation. Though I guess it will be harder for them to argue that they don’t see the point of it in the former case.

I’ll start by saying that I saw a half-hour presentation which précised a considerable amount of preliminary work which, at this stage, is a possible way for this school to go forward. The specific ideas he had for the planning process, which are clever and, I believe, potentially very usable, are his intellectual property and I was told them in confidence at this stage. The newspaper article I linked to yesterday is on a similar theme, but was written by a journalist not an educationalist and I haven’t received specific information about what the DfES* is actually planning. However, I’ll explain a bit more from what I do know and can say.

Short lessons would not and should not be given in every subject but there are some things that could be taught, not necessarily by a specialist teacher, in short bursts. And not every 15 minutes, maybe one 15 minute lesson slipped in during the day, either as a brief reminder of a longer lesson the day before or as a quick stimulating introduction to a minority subject. For example (and this is only my example, not one being actually suggested), B@dgerd@ddy said that there is a petition going the rounds to have sign language taught in every school. Now, that would be inappropriate, I think, to have on the National Curriculum, but how about 15 minutes once or twice a week for half a term, with the option of following it up if you are interested? Or, for a group of pupils who have difficulty in reading, a 15 minute reading aloud session? Maybe in pairs, taking it in turns to read to each other. Perhaps the teacher spending a few minutes reading a chapter of a really eye-opening book that is beyond the pupils’ capabilities to read but not their ability to understand? It will not, of course, be possible for a whole school to keep shifting round to different rooms every few minutes, but focusing on that and ridiculing it risks ignoring real potential in an idea.

I didn’t suggest teaching the minutiae of interest rates (and it was, again, my example, not the school’s), the whole principle of how you can end up paying for something over and over again, which people can’t understand or they wouldn’t do it. How the ‘easier’ the payment, the longer you will keep paying it.
There is an article in todays E@stern Da1ly Pre$$, which I would link to if I could but it seems that I’ll have to subscribe to their website to do so (silly buggers), saying that teenagers are building up worrying levels of debt. People in their first jobs are being granted loans from banks that would entail them paying back more than their monthly salary each month. “Most young people do not budget … and have no idea …good financial habits are not something that are talked about at school” said the spokesman from the C1t1zens’ Adv1ce Bure@u debtl1ne (I do hope these annoying twiddles keep Google away from me here, does anyone know?).

Just because someone is not an academic high flier does not mean that he or she is not capable of learning to run their own life and understanding practicalities. But they need to be taught them. When I was young, I would not have been able to borrow more money than I could pay back. The first thing this government did was to charge fees to university students, while simultaneously taking away their grants, which caused much of the problem and is just one of the many crimes of a so-called ‘Labour’ administration which has spent the last ten years screwing the poor.

Dandelion also asked “What was wrong with the old education system anyway?”

Which old education system do you mean? The one when you were at school? When I was? The fact is that there are an awful lot of kids who spend 12 years in school and have nothing to show for it. If, instead of starting with a rigid curriculum to follow, you can start with a range of options that cater for the aptitude of each pupil and, as far as practicable, to tailor the education to the child. There is a good deal of it happening already, with the amount of vocational education going on. Pupils who are simply not going to get good marks in a wide range of GCSE subjects can focus on a few, and learn a trade at the same time, such as hairdressing, building or catering. They can take exams which give them GCSE-equivalent qualifications and take the core subjects too. Disaffected students can do work placements for part of the week; an ‘alternative curriculum’ that keeps them out of school some of the time, which can be, frankly, a benefit for everyone, but which is useful and does not simply lose them from education altogether.

And there is a lot wrong with education for more academically able children too. Back in the 1970s when comprehensive education was brought in, so much was thrown out as elitist and highbrow. The opportunity to broaden and enhance education for all children was wilfully thrown away in favour of ‘dumbing down’. This hit poorer, disadvantaged but intelligent pupils and drove wealthier ones to the private and selective sector. I’m not meaning to be political here, but successive governments have each followed their own idealogical agenda in education rather than actually looked at the people – pupils and teachers – involved, and it is taking years to put right.

But it is getting better. There are possibilities and I’m hopeful about them. There are going to be blind alleys and daft ideas, but that’s the way with something new. If all we look for are the things that can go wrong, we will not see the opportunities. I reiterate, the DfES must let go and trust the schools. Not dictate everything that goes on, not make it relate to league tables, let schools go the traditional way if it is working well and they do not want to have a shake-up forced upon them. Give their attention to the schools that are failing and struggling and let the others, such as mine (while we’ve got some bloody good staff with ideas, ideals and practical, pragmatic enthusiasm) have a go.

*Department for Education and Science

PS. I’ll get back off the soapbox and back into the kitchen now. Time to make marmalade.

At a committee meeting a fortnight ago, we were treated to an explanation by one of the senior teachers of the preliminary planning he has been doing, regarding the way he would like the school curriculum to go in the future. It was fascinating, daunting and quite exciting (if you’re the sort of person who gets excited by school curriculums. Or curricula. It seems that I am). He also told us about other educational changes likely to be in the pipeline; since the school is just coming through an entire reorganisation of its staffing structure – superbly planned and executed, I will say, it’s working well – and S*ff*lk is likely to be going from a 3-tier system to a 2-tier one (changing schools at 11 rather than 9 and 13), I was, ultimately, more daunted than enthused, although it was quite a close contest.

But since then, I have become enthused again. However, HOWEVER, this all depends on how the government decides to play it.

You may have seen this in the papers last week. Skip through all the bumph about Mandarin, I have no idea where that is coming from so suddenly – the Times has given a ‘teach yourself Mandarin CD’ and is blathering on about it constantly. The last time they got this sort of bee in their bonnet, they pretended all their readers were writing in begging them to make the newspaper sodding tabloid so that they could make it an annoyingly titchy paper and lied IN THEIR TEETH saying that it was responding to reader pressure when it had never been mentioned before, so maybe it will be printed in Mandarin any day now and I will have to read another paper instead. Um, don’t worry, I may digress but I never lose the thread, even if my listeners (or readers) are old and grey by the time I’ve finished – the key words (back to this article I’ve linked to) are ‘give teachers more flexibility’ and ‘interest and enthuse their pupils’.

The preliminary plans he showed us were his own interpretation of a curriculum that would, ideally, cater for each pupil, whatever his or her aptitude or ability. His view is – and it is certainly one I share – that many pupils are completely turned off school in their teens, if not before. And I’ve said this for years – I don’t blame the poor little buggers – if you are destined not to be one of life’s academic achievers, you will spend many years at school feeling not good enough. Destined to fail. In your vulnerable teens, to be put in the bottom set of everything. Knowing that, however hard you tried, you would still be in the bottom set – how surprising is it that many of them play the fool or worse? How much better would it be to offer a curriculum that teaches you what you really need, whether it’s understanding how interest rates can rip you off or working out the best get-out score in darts (and how many “underachievers” can do that? – lots of them) and prepares them for working life, with basic 3Rs and general knowledge, plus useful vocational training.

On the other side of the same coin, too many bright students in middle-ranking schools have little chance of reaching their full academic potential. I know about that, I went to a nice traditional girls’ school where we were taught nice traditional girls’ subjects and no chance of much science or languages. I went to the just-turned-comprehensive former Grammar School to take Latin and French A levels; I’d already taken English and History but that was about all they could do, except Art which I couldn’t and Biology, where I’d have been the only one in the class. I was stunned by the education I could have had, and which has now almost vanished from state schools.

The plans outlined could put this right. Cater for the aptitude of each child. It could be so good. However, it is also vastly complex – it’s all very well, talking about focusing on obscure subjects for a term at a time, or having 15 minute lessons, but where are the teachers? How do you timetable? Move a thousand children to a different room for 15 minutes? It all needs to be thought through.

There are a few things to watch out for. One is not to make it ‘topic based’. They tried that in primary schools a few years ago. The idea was that you linked history, geography, maths, literacy, all in one lesson – yes there was some merit in the theory, but the result was that nothing was taught properly.

Another is to offer it to the schools and let them run with it. Don’t dictate. If a school does not want to go that way, don’t make them. Of course, there are still the areas of the core curriculum and these probably will still go in the league tables (because we have a government that thinks you make a pig put on weight by weighing it) but trust them to know their strengths and get it right.

Nothing this government has yet done gives me a great deal of hope about that, but some pretty imaginative people have managed to get the plans to the drawing board, at any rate. My school is looking to press on, to a greater or lesser degree, with its plans. I don’t know what the result will be, but I still need to decide whether to become really engaged in it, or to get out while I haven’t had to do any work.

“What are we having for dinner tonight?” asked Ro. “The pumpkin soup I made the other day,” I told him “and a pizza. I was going to make some cheese scones, but your father and I agreed, let’s make life easy and see what’s in the freezer.” “We’re not having that cabbage then?”

There is half a small Savoy cabbage left; the other half went in the minestrone soup. “We could,” I suggested without meaning it at all, “shred and deep fry the cabbage to sprinkle over the soup.” “That might be nice” said the lad, keenly.

Well yes, it might be, if he’s going to do it. If he thinks I am, he might be a little less than appointed.

At present, he’s making himself a substantial salad sandwich for his lunch tomorrow. I am drinking wine. A pleasant pink Pinot Grigio. I am going to spend the evening reading the papers – skipping the news and heading for the articles – and mellowing nicely.

Ooh dear. The Sage told me this morning that, coincidentally, both our and next door’s drains blocked yesterday. I may not have mentioned before (for why should I?) that we are not on mains drainage, but that each house has a septic tank. Ours is a splendid large brick underground affair whilst Al and Dilly’s is the smaller modern plastic sort – still buried safely out of sight, of course. They both last for some years without needing to be emptied (ours was last emptied at least 23 years ago, it digests its own contents) but occasionally the drains block, as drains do. Sometimes tree roots get into ours, which are very old. Once a poor rabbit crawled into the pipe at the further end and got stuck – that was a nasty one.

So yesterday and this morning, the Sage and a helper (a friend y’day and Al today) have been glumly struggling with the drain rods.

AND I WASN’T HERE TO HELP!!(!)

I am the only regular churchgoer in the family. Maybe drawing conclusions from this is simple superstition, but I rather like to think that I have a guardian with a sense of humour.

A young couple came to church today whom I didn’t know; from their air of uncertainty I assumed that they were the pair whose banns of marriage are currently being read out at the services, and so it proved. I said ‘hello’ to them, and when the banns were being read I looked their way (seated on the organ stool, I am in front of and sideways on to the congregation). They looked so happy, and I gave them a big grin. They stayed for coffee afterwards – we serve very good coffee and it is not an ordeal – and chatted to people. I like it when this happens as churchgoers are always portrayed as such freaks. This isn’t surprising when you read what some representatives of some churches say, but we’re not all bigoted narrow-minded unpleasant types stuck somewhere in one of the more ignorant eras in history with a refusal to accept that another’s point of view may be valid even if we don’t share it. Just some self-styled Christians are. And I suspect that makes Jesus quite cross.

I cannot fault British Rail! Or, at any rate, the version we have in East Anglia, which is called “One”.

There is work on the line between Norwich and Diss and so the Norwich people have to be bused in. Diss is my nearest station (well, actually, it isn’t quite, but the nearest is on a very slow line where you have to change at Ipswich so I don’t use it). I picked up my pre-ordered ticket and spoke to the conductor as I toodled along the platform.

“This is the London train?” “This train is going to London, yes,” he replied, more correctly. We grinned at each other. He was extremely handsome and a pleasure to grin at. Later, he came round to check tickets. I eyed him surreptitiously – he is a good fifteen years younger than I and I had no unwholesome thoughts. His name is Errol.

As I neared Liverpool Street, I went to the lavatory. I was rather dismayed to find a long, thin anaemic-looking turd floating in the bowl. Not that I haven’t seen worse, but the next person in might think I’d done it – I could see it was a confirmed floater. Indeed, two more flushes didn’t eliminate it. Fortunately, no one was waiting at the door when I left to lurch back to my seat. The train was going very fast and we arrived five minutes early.

Furthermore, the bus took less than fifteen minutes to get to Trafalgar Square, instead of the thirty-three suggested by the website.

The two painting that, for today, pleased me particularly were this and this. Neither reproduction is very clear, I’m afraid and you may have to go and see for yourself.

The monochrome one of the girl at the window – there is also a boy looking through the telescope but he is not easy to see – is beautiful and has been painted with great charm. I could spend a long time looking at it. There is a great deal of detail and I love the unassuming skill of the artist.

The children were enchanting. The cherubic one at the back looks so proud of his splendid uniform whilst the eldest has a more confident air of familiarity with his fine clothes. The little boy at the front is, regrettably, clutching a bird so hard that I’m afraid he is hurting it, but I adore his badly cut fringe that looks as if he hacked away at it himself with a penknife.

I hadn’t seen El, Phil or my sister M since Christmas, and we were glad to see each other. An hour or two in the National Gallery, a good lunch and a wander round Covent Garden, then I came home. Again, the train was on time – a pity one has to remark on it when it should be unremarkable, but at least it can be said.

And dinner waiting for me. Mind you, I’d cooked all but the vegetables myself yesterday, but I was glad of the foresight.

It’s my holier than thou Sunday tomorrow, to church at 7.30 to set up for the early service and then back at 10 to play the organ at 11. Have I practised? The answer, as ever, is no.