Last Words

These are my last words writing from the café at the local leisure centre where I go every Wednesday during term time as a parent volunteer for my son’s swimming class. It’s their final session today.

My lad has gone from being so anxious about swimming that he didn’t want to go at all, to wanting to go for swimming lessons now the class sessions are over.

The café that was closed has reopened, although I still haven’t bought anything. They have new tables and chairs, too, which is nice.

It’s been something a personal journey for me, too. Having an hour or so in relatively undisturbed peace and quiet just to write whatever comes into my head (and publish to my micro.blog) has felt very therapeutic. I feel like something significant has changed within me, for the better.

I can’t say what, exactly, for a number of reasons, not in public. Maybe another time.

I’m also wondering if it’s a permanent change, or if it will all unravel. And I’m also feeling some sense of loss. Something that has been a part of me for a long time has gone. Even though it had an overall bad effect on my life, it was a regular companion. It won’t be missed, exactly, but it takes some getting used to, it not being here.

I’ll need to find somewhere else to write.

Thriving?

My son’s school’s Thrive teacher is leaving. She helped transform my lad’s experience of school from being one where he had weekly if not daily challenges with regulating his emotions and his behaviour, to one where he enjoys school every day. She’s going to be very greatly missed.

I managed to tell her this today and thank her for her work. It was so sad to hear her story.

She has committed ten years of her life to helping our youngsters get the best start in life, and done lots of extra work getting accredited to do so. But, at the end of the day, she can no longer afford to continue, and has taken a job elsewhere in sales and marketing.

What a stupid, shit country we live in.

Teachers

Yesterday morning, I was sat in the foyer of my little kid’s children’s centre waiting for the staff to arrive so he could start his day. He was eager to get in, banging on the locked doors to the main part of the nursery. In my day, the kids would be trying to get out, not in.

Some other parents, younger than me, commented the same. Everyone recounted some particularly, sadistic child-hating teacher who regularly brutalised them or some other poor unfortunate during their formative years.

We’re lucky that teachers today seem to be so much friendlier, and supportive, and tolerant of differences and behavioural challenges. And generally just miles better teachers and humans.

There were exceptions, of course. I had one teacher in particular, who would have fitted right in with contemporary teachers (although probably not, actually, as he was a bit of a contrarian). But he was a great teacher, loved kids, and dedicated his life to teaching.

It always amazes me, though, when I see old school friends on Facebook reminiscing about some teacher we had, about how wonderful they were. Most of them were drunken bullies, whose hobbies revolved around making kids miserable and causing physical and mental harm.

They’d be locked up now.

ToryBoy

ToryBoy The Movie is the account of filmmaker John Walsh’s disillusionment with what he saw as the corruption, lies, hypocrisy and general incompetence of Blair’s Labour government, and his conversion to the Conservative (Tory) Party general election candidate for Middlesbrough in 2010.

Under his own steam and £15,000 of his own money, John found his opponent, Sir Stuart Bell, the serial incumbent Labour MP, invisible and unknown to his local constituents who nevertheless voted him back in every four or five years (albeit with an ever diminishing majority). Bell was too busy, it seemed, living in Paris, and employing his family not to answer phone calls at his parliamentary office. Worse, his son stole £8,000 worth of stuff from Bell’s parliamentary colleagues, eventually serving sixty days in prison for the privilege.

Despite this record of failure, Bell was duly elected again, with Walsh coming in third behind the newly Nick Clegg-revitalised Lib Dems.

Last year, I had my own attempt to counter what I (and many others) saw as corruption, lies, hypocrisy and general incompetence of our local elected councillors. Standing as independent candidates, me and my two friends came fourth in the safest Labour ward in Ealing. It was good fun campaigning, and I enjoyed the physical activity of walking almost every street in my ward dropping leaflets, and the social activity of actually talking to people in person. And we helped to reduce Labour’s vote share and majority (not that it makes any difference to the result).

Still, people voted in their thousands for two councillors who have been in post for twenty four years each, while the problems everyone complains about are the same but worse.

Ultimately, it was another failure to add to my CV.

Break in Transmission

Last week’s swimming lesson was cancelled, and the week before that, we went away for half-term. To a very wet and wild north-east Lincolnshire right by the sea (or the Humber Estuary). With no wifi, and very poor data connectivity. In a tin can caravan.

But we all had fun, and the kids got to spend time with their grandparents who live nearby. And use their wifi.

On the night before we left I met up with a couple of my oldest and best friends, Murray and Aaron, who I hadn’t seen for ten (Aaron) and thirty (!) (Murray) years. It was really great to have a couple of pints and talk shit with them, just like the old days, as if it was only yesterday.

Getting Dressed

My three and a half year old is going through that stage where he doesn’t want to get dressed in the morning to go to nursery.

I remember with my oldest lad some mornings I used to be in tears trying to get him ready.

Fortunately, their mum is now working from home and has taken on this task with the little one. My main job now is to remind my nine year old to “sit at the table and eat your breakfast” every two minutes.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, my secondary role was as assistant little kid dresser. I would sit him on my knee with one arm around his chest holding his arms down, while trying to hold a leg or a foot so that his mum could forcibly put on his underpants, socks and trousers without him kicking or pulling them off again.

Mum has now found a much more kid-friendly method, with no tears.

Underpants are now butterflies, fluttering around looking for somewhere to land. Socks, of course, make great foot-puppets. Trousers are caterpillars crawling on a tree branch, and his coat is a big brown bear who just wants a hug.

It’s still exhausting, but it makes the morning a little bit happier for everyone.

Haircut

My nine year old had a trim the other day. No one else can really tell, but his massive afro isn’t quite so massive as it was last week, and certainly a little less knotted.

Should make it easier to get his swimming cap on.

His mum cuts his hair. We took him to a barber’s when he was younger, and I literally had to hold him down while the barber did his work.

I never liked having my hair cut. I used to have very thick curly hair as a boy, although not an afro. My mum used to use what she called thinning scissors, which were kind of like scissors with teeth. It felt like having my hair pulled out.

I think as kids we’re just so much more sensitive to all these things. And my lad’s hair is a core part of his identity. (When he was younger, he used to identify as a lion, so his hair was his mane.)

I managed to overcome my fear of hair cutting as an adult, and even found a reliable barber pre-covid. Since the pandemic, like many others, I bought a pair of clippers and do it myself now.

Catwoman

Last week, we had a visitor.

Catwoman appeared, to save the day!

All the way from leafy Surrey, she turned up in her Porsche 4x4 and catsuit to catch our community cats and take them to the vet “because they have cat flu”.

With her ten year old assistant, and cat trap, she tried for (what seemed like) hours to catch a cat, or a kitten, to no avail.

Too Much Pressure

Inevitably, as I sit here in the cafe next to my son’s swimming lesson, unable to drink coffee because the cafe is permanently closed, my mind wanders and starts thinking about coffee.

For most of my adult life, I’ve started the day with a cup of tea. Regular English breakfast tea. PG Tips, Tetley. Milk and sugar.

Tea was always my preferred drink, but I did like a cup of instant coffee or two later in the morning, but only if it was one I liked. I wasn’t fond of Nescafe or the other regular blends.

A few years ago, I switched to Rooibos (redbush) tea, and never went back. I also started appreciating real coffee made in a French press, and later got my own Aeropress. What really sealed the coffee deal, was discovering fresh coffee beans that aren’t burnt (Pact Coffee).

About three years ago, I backed a Kickstarter campaign to build an affordable, portable espresso maker, CoffeeJack.

Now, I’m not one of those people who backs a lot of these types of things, although it wasn’t my first or last. I understand that it’s not like ordering from Amazon or anywhere else. You’re backing a project with money in the hope that it’s successful and that you end up with a product that works as described. There’s no guarantee.

Now, CoffeeJack delivered about three years after they got my money. Which is a long time! They had lots of problems along the way, including, of course, the covid pandemic. So fair play to them for getting their project finished at all. And it was worth the wait, in my opinion. They produced exactly what they promised, and for six months I had two cups a day of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.

Sadly, just when I thought I’d cracked it, I cracked the bayonet on my CoffeeJack. Too much pressure, to quote The Selector.

Impossible Job

Last week, my boss asked me to produce a professional looking ten page job profile for a potential new appointment.

He provided me with an example from another employer, and asked me to use the same format.

He wanted me to find some suitable photographs “online” to use.

This was all outside of his skillset.

And mine.

He wanted it “by tomorrow” (Wednesday), and gave me the text he’d written for the first page, as well as the headings he wanted to use for the remaining pages.

The formatted example he’d given me was a pdf. I was very pleased to discover that Adobe now provides a free pdf to Word conversion, which certainly made my job easier.

It was easy enough to find photographs, of course, but not so much photographs that are free to use. My boss later told me he wasn’t worried about that, as he “wasn’t using them for commercial purposes.”

The next day (Wednesday), my boss emailed to say he would send me the final nine pages of text he still hadn’t written “tomorrow morning” (Thursday), and that “we” would “populate” the template document then.

While I was eating lunch the next day (Thursday), his email arrived leaving me two hours to put the whole thing together. I didn’t think it would be enough time, but just got on with it.

Two hours later, I still had two pages to do, but had to collect my kids from nursery and school, make their tea (or dinner, as they call it), and get them in the bath. I managed to finish it later while they watched TV.

My boss was very pleased, although he said he didn’t expect anyone would actually see it.