Old MacDonald Had a Fail

A much better day at school. Recently it has not been so good because my year-group are still a bunch of immature kids that mess about and call me a bookworm when I say shut up I'm trying to study here.

Having finished our mock exams, we had some spare time and used up 2 free hours running around in the park. In Gardening we did a whole lot of weeding because we're going to plant potatoes (in an Oirish accent) which will have to feed the Year 3s next year so we need a lot.

And when I got home I did exactly what I was supposed to do and got changed into my acting stuff and got my acting bag ready and so forth, and was waiting by the front door for when Bud got home. I told him I'd had some fruit but when he said O so you should be able to prove that by showing me the wrapper in the bin, then, my lie was uncovered and I took a banana in guilt. How come these stupid adults are cleverer than me?

My rehearsal started at 5 so the plan was (thank you, Jof) to have a McDonalds to eat in the car on the way to the theatre: so at least I had some hot food in me, to fund my exertions for the 4 1/2 hour rehearsal.

But the queue for the drive-thru stretched back onto the main road, and we knew it was futile, much like resistance. So we went back to Little Tesco and got my favourite tuna'n'cucumber sandwiches in about 12 seconds, and that was better, cheaper and healthier.

And during a conversation about Lithuanian coins (as you do) at his work, Bud was approached by an old bloke who said I've got a bucket of old coins, you can have them for the kid's collection. Amazing what you can get if you ask nicely. So here is a joblot of random world coins of indeterminate value.

Meanwhile, I was rehearsing. But after 4 hours, I simply ran out of energy and they phoned home just as Jof was parking up ready to retrieve me. I luxuriated in the shower (video not available) and fell into bed. Syd spent £1600 on an operation for her dog, could have bought a whole flock of dogs for that.

System of a Clown

At last, we got some of our Mock SAT results: I got 68/75 which is all very well, I only need, like, 20 on the next one to get myself an 'Exceeding' but it's still not as good as Child A, our class maths guru. He got 75/75 and will probably go on to write the code that gets the SexBot 3000 into the White House, both behind and under the Oval Office desk, mmm.

Anyway, my Scoutmaster asked kids who did the city camp last weekend to write up a report on it for the newsletter and I gathered a few facts and opinions together, in rough, so that I could make a decent article for it. But mostly I wanted to watch Youtube videos because Jof went swimming and I know I've got a busy time of it over the next few days.

Wigged and Measured (and found wanting)

Well, it's just the same old story nowadays. We didn't get the results of our tests, and got set some more tests. When will we ever find out whether we shall sweep the roads of the future, or design them?

And then it was panic. I'd forgotten about the Theatre Showcase, and I got 1 hour's notice that the final dress rehearsal was upon us. That gave me 12 minutes to eat my pasta before Sydney arrived for a lift to the venue.

But I still managed to play the Vikkid Vitch of the Vest with a particularly long cardboard tube destined for the next Scout camp, and then we were off!

With only a small detour to avoid armed police blocking off a road by the naval sports facility, we got there laughing and got changed into some of our funnier costumes.

Bud got roped into helping make the set which is this giant double-panelled device that swings open in the middle and represents Toad Hall.

So here are some of us in costume: I demanded to wear the big silver wig and there's my bucket'O'props in the foreground.

And we practised our lines and watched the age group below us and they were really good. 3 hours later, we were on the way home and the phrase 'to be fair, to be sure' in an Oirish accent came up in normal conversation and that's when Sydney couldn't stop laughing. So of course I went on about potatoes and schnell schnell Kartoppelkopfs and cherrybombs and fluffbutts in very silly voices until she hyperventilated and ruptured internally and had even less control over her rectal sphincter than usual. So it was a giggly end to a very good day, apart from when I was measured against the bedroom door to find I'd only grown 3 millimetres in the last 3 months.

A Leap into the Unknown Event Horizon

Ugh! 2 tests today, spelling and grammar. And we still haven't got our results back from the first one.

Still, these ones were shorter. The talkative Child A from yesterday learned from his mistakes and wasn't disqualified today. Perhaps we're all getting used to these oppressive 'Examination Conditions'. Later I broke up with a friend in a totally terminal way, honest, unlike all the previous times.

And I was just sitting at home doing homework (where else?) when Bud came home an hour early and instantly went right off again to a job interview he didn't know about this morning. Gave me more time on the computer.

Mocking the Week

Well, here it is at last, almost. The SATs are pretty well the first exams we've ever met, and therefore we haven't truly met 'Exam Conditions' before. Teachers have been talking about this for months, with phrases such as 'There's no need to be nervous' and 'Some people think this is terrifying', clearly all designed to palpitate us into an early grave by way of myocardial infarction.

So we have this thing called 'Mocks' which is where you do last years' exam under these new-fangled exam conditions, and then the teachers get to identify the pupils that run away, wet themselves, stick pencils up their noses and go wibble, talk incessantly, hyperventilate, sleep, or otherwise stray from the straight and narrow.

So for the first exam of the week, we did English Comprehension, where you read a passage and answer questions on it. Child A has a new hairstyle and talks to himself sotto voce, where sotto voce is loud enough to be heard in the next room. So we did our exam to a constant background hum of 'OK, so that's question 3 done, woohoo, wonder what question 4 is like, gosh isn't my hair all groovy and cool'. Child B cannot shut up, ever, so he was disqualified from the entire exam for babbling even while being told to shut up. This may not be something he gets over until he is dead, and several of us wanted to help him down that shining path.

A member of another class walked up to the front and demanded to urinate so loudly (the demanding, not the desired urination) that he was placed in a neighbouring room, from which he could still be heard whining. And being disqualified. Yet another saucy student produced 2 1/2 litres of silent but deadly marsh gas from his rear sphincter, not all distractions are noisy. Now, while generations past may remember gymnasia full of neatly arranged single-person desks with studious silent students busy filling their fountain pens, being patrolled by a Sports master and a Latin teacher each with canes, it is no longer the case and you're not able to train a child to be quiet in 2 easy moves by hitting him on the back of the head every time he talks. So we wonder just how the teaching staff will provide us with a calm environment in which to sit our exams, without giving us all our own toilet cubicle on different planets.

Later my class visited the same church where I spent Saturday night and we heard about easter, and how celebrating a dead Arimathean was so much better than the pagan fertility festival that preceded it. Then I brought Ben home and nobody had graffiti-ed on our gate and we went to the park in the glorious sunshine.

Mother's Day: an in-tents celebration

So after the parents left last night we played tag and had hot dogs and cake. Lots of people had brought cake but the biggest and most chocolatey one was claimed by the deserving Leaders. The half oil-drum fire thing on which we frazzled our marshmallows yesterday destroyed quite a lot of the church garden by spewing embers in the wind so we weren't allowed to have a real camp-fire, because there was no dedicated fire-pit in a suitable location. And while there were all these stone tombs around, just saying.

Anyway so the Leaders made a pretend camp-fire out of sticks with crunched-up coloured paper inside for the flames, then made a big show of dancing around it saying it was hot. There followed many traditional camp-fire songs such as the Quartermaster's Stores: one was 'The cat dragged Nellie by the belly around the farm' and you had to sing it really quickly and we could make up our own verses and I had basically a genteel rap battle with Flynn.

At 10pm we went to bed and by midnight I was asleep. Various Leaders had to patrol up and down with shotguns all night because you could see the tents from the road and we didn't want drunken pub-goers causing mayhem. But the rest of us got some sleep.

Today we tidied up and did the church service for Mother's Day and I read out one of the responses which was 'Soften with a mother's gentleness all the hardness of human hearts. May the holy family of Nazareth bring blessing wherever people live together. Draw all races and nations to be one family in your love. Lord, in your mercy...' and then everyone else had to say 'hear our prayer'. So there was another public performance under my belt. Then the parents came and we took all the unused wood away to put in our garage for the next camp which shall have a decent place for a fire. Funnily enough, even though the oil-drum was burning for ages, we actually made a profit on wood as some other Scouting parents had brought some, so we went back with more than we delivered, and Jof had to walk home as there was no space in the car.

I spent the rest of the day on the sofa because that's when it catches up with you, and I was tired right up until bathtime. I gave Jof my special Mother's Day Simnel cake with the 11 marzipan nobs on representing the disciples.

Camp! And Getting Dirty

Saturdays are good because I can get as much time as I like Youtubing on the tablet, Minecrafting, X-Boxing, Phineas-and-Ferbing, and numerous other gently interactive screen-based activities. But it was not to be.

Jof and I were force-fed cheesy scrambled eggs on toast with bacon, a tough job but someone has to do it. Then we abandoned my dear mother and loaded up the car with these pre-packed boxes of wood and kindling and cakes for the Scout Demonstration Camp, not a political protest movement but a chance for all the parents to see what naughty shenanigans their little Scoutlets get up to, and where their money goes.

We ditched (neatly stacked) the pile of boxes (I am being a judge with my rubber mallet and condemning miscreants) at the church up against the Vicar's garage. We were first there so it was nice to leave a surprise for the Scout leaders, hiding the cakes in the middle of the pile. The church hall was playing host to a Slimming World meeting and we very nearly waved the cakes at them. Then we drove north through heavy football-related traffic to endless suburbia "Waterlooville".

There we had arranged with a gasman called Kamlesh to take away his no-longer-used basketball hoop and stand to use as a mobile indoor flagpole for the Scouts, who don't have a decent flagpole in the church meeting room by the little canteen.

We fought with it because its nuts and bolts and screws and washers were quite rusty and dirty having been outside for 7 years and we all got dirty and muddy and the screwdriver broke and we loaded it into the car with difficulty and gave him a pony (£25) for his trouble.

Then we had to unload it into our back yard and I got even dirtier but not as dirty as 'The wife' apparently because we'd seen loads of dirty cars with 'wish my wife was this dirty' written on the back in the dust, and the mud and the blood and the beer (Johnny Cash).

So I had a shower, knowing I would miss out tonight. Then I hurriedly ate lunch and some of Bud's lunch and took Sydney to acting where we had a real laugh trying to distract each other from saying our lines, as practise for when the audience are heckling us in the play.

And I left at 4pm and high-tailed it back to the church where most of the demonstrations were over but we ran around in and out of the tents and hid biscuits for later and frazzled some marshmallows on the fire made of our own destroyed wood pallets and the Beavers successfully burnt some kindling and gosh darn it, this is the life.

It was a lovely day in the sunshine (see seafront here) but will be a bit nippy tonight, lucky I have clothes, but don't always wear them.

Crimson Nasal Comedy Day 2017

So we were allowed to wear red clothes and noses if we paid a quid to Comic Relief. I did this and wore my Navy top. In PE we did cricket again but I'm not a natural batsperson and didn't hit many balls so all the sporty types jeered and laughed and taunted and I still didn't throw my bat at them.

The parents say that when the sporty types get 2/10 in maths I have to say well the country will always need drivers for the bin lorries and those nice people that say hello and welcome to walmart.

Later I met Sham and Okely Dokely online (on phones) for some gaming action and Bud went to the pub with all the people from his old work. I have to get some rest tonight because it's all about to kick off tomorrow.

 

Beast from the 4th Declension

Usual stuff, 17/20 in the maths test. When I got home I got the pizza ready because sometimes I am almost human. I needed an early supper because of another Wind-in-the-Willows rehearsal and we got there dead on time.

I still haven't got my costume sorted but given the amount of actors, that's not surprising. We went through various scenes and I read in for missing players and I loved the Gangster Weasels, very threatening in their ninja outfits. We also have a comic scene where Hedgehog gets run over by a car.

Speaking of which, the heavily armed Policepersons were again in evidence outside all our naval bases and similar terrorist targets following the incident in London yesterday. I have stood on that bridge many times and looked through those same railings: and I'll be going back.

Taking Sydney home from acting, she again farted as she got out of the car. I am not sure if this is a deliberate policy or she just can't help it.

'Ere 'Ere

Underwent the usual roundelay of mathematical conundra and English constructions, all designed to ensure that when I grow up, I have Friends with Benefits, not Friends on Benefits. In PE, Benchball is popular with the whole class and today my team won, with me getting the winning catch! If only I was a little taller.

And in the afternoon I got a very annoying earache, not brought on by being castigated by termagants, or chatted to by Grandad for 30 minutes. He taught me more about π. I'd already done co-ordinates in maths so he enjoyed hearing about that and my acting and Scouting but not the amusing back gate incident, I don't think he knows words that modern.

Later we watched the end of Matrix II which was too long to see in one sitting. The remainder lasted 3 minutes. But St Neots saved Trinitrotoluene by removing a virtual bullet and Morphines' ship was blown up by some mechanical octopi. So for no reason whatsoever, here is a man who knows what he loves and is deliberately expanding his artistic body canvas.

Triangles of Lurve

Jof gave me a lift into school today because of my large (but empty) cardboard box we'll be using as a table. She had forgotten just how bad the school run is, with suicidal kids and parents wandering around in the roads, most of which are one-way and all of them packed. Then my project team members asked for another box.

For English today we split into threesomes and wrote opening sentences to an imaginary story as detailed by the teacher. As a discrete yet indiscreet group of kids, we have been together for some years now and in one form or another, each triumvirate seems to be a love triangle of unrequired passion, just not up to the level of Rita, Sue and Bob. In the end, my opening Stanza was selected to represent our group and we won the popular vote, hurrah.

In the afternoon Jof tortured me by taking me pants shopping. I will grudgingly admit it's slightly better than not in fact having any pants, but only just. I have been highly trained in the masculine art of being passively dragged around a clothing store, looking chided, bored and colicky all in one face. But I did eat 2 apples on the way round, possibly also a Y chromosome-based inherited characteristic. I also made sure I was awarded a set of Minecraft figurines as a reward for having pants that fit.

Can't! Won't! Shan't!

Nowadays school life is just blurring into an endless series of identikit days you can't tell apart. Fortunately this won't go on forever, I know my life as a grown-up shan't be this dull. Every day we do maths revision, revise some English, and, if we're truly madly exceptionally lucky, we get to do some work on our Evacuee projects.

Now, over the period, my current owners have tried their best to help jolly up my school projects and activities: during the 2013 Nativity play I was 'Gold' King Melchior wearing actual gold chains, I have a wartime suitcase for my Evacuee project, and my own chimney-sweep brush for the Victorian Festival of Christmas. Some things cost money, some cost effort. This time I have 2 cardboard boxes that will make a very natty table at a price of £zero. But Child A in our group bought Ration book replicas and sweeties for prizes and we were just cruel to her. No fair.

And I took Ben home to prepare for Park Monday and that's when we saw the graffiti. Now, strike a light Guv'nor, we're men of the world, been there done that, know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, squire. But you don't need it drawn on your new back gate in permanent pen by some brat with big ideas from the local school.

So I took a picture of it and sent it to Jof, and Ben had the bright idea of covering it up with paper and he did a sad face to protect the smaller brats from the local school and then we did the park anyway, having used Microsoft Paint to clean up this image.

At one point Robert's birthday ball ended up on the roof so we repaired to mine for feel-better crisps and then Bud got home and we tried to clean the gate with white spirit and sugar soap and lighter fluid and in the end we just painted over it.

Robert reckoned that what they'd meant to write was "Fat, can't run" but that's just because he's young and innocent, and I just let him think that.

Then we took the ladder to the park (not for the first time) because doesn't everybody, and we got the birthday football back and a bonus tennis ball and then it drizzled so we all went home anyway, having done 90 minutes of sterling park work not including the bit where we used industrial solvents, sniff.

In Scouts I got my Level 4 Swimmer Badge and a section badge and we made Simnel Cakes for Mother's day. One of Flynn's marzipan nobs fell off and I edged my cake with lemon drizzle.

11 Hours of Snöre*

By the time I got up this morning, I'd managed 11 hours' sleep. Not bad for someone who's not yet a teenager.

I have very few duties per se, so I renegotiated down to only 1 homework, and helped unpack the shopping one item at a time. This left me righteously able to Minecraft, Youtube, Spore and fritter away the day while spring tried to arrive outside. This is our twisty-willow tree (not weeping-willow) with its first baby leaves of the season: soon the city will be bedecked with Devil's Lettuce and Diviner's Sage once more. Yes, I'm still in pyjamas.

* Snöre is a Swedish sweetie, that comes in the form of brightly coloured shoelaces (10 metres of Snöre!)

*Cough*

Last night I was commanded to get a good 10 hours + of sleep to try and help me recover from my cough and the tough week us 11 year-olds have. But somehow my heart just wasn't in it and I got up at a sensible time. The morning was passed in quiet solitude with a sturdy breakfast and the great god Youtube, who supplies my every need in return for daily devotion.

Meanwhile, more wood was provided for the Scout campfire, Ricin seeds were planted, and all the other little things that us chaps never notice happened in the background. In Acting we got to use the main stage which cheered us up no end, and we planned our performance of Under Milk Wood with choreography and costume changes and stuff.

I'm still coughing. On the way out, Sydney nicked a dog toy from the lost property and we fought over it all the way home resulting in 2 miles of giggles. On the way, we all went oooo at the 16th century house on the High Street that is up for sale (£1.5 million) with big chunks of history thrown in free. Called the Greyhound Pub in 1523, it still has a bar in its basement.

And we've got 3 new Schwarzenegger movies to watch (Conan the Destroyer, Expendables 2 and 3) but first I want the next 2 Matrices. Matrix 'Reloaded' was so long I had to go to bed before the end.

Imprisonment, Custody, Preventative Detention or Corrective Training?

Hooray for Friday, because it's Gardening. Apparently in later life I will see it as a cathartic end to the 5-day drag, and I'll have Friday on my mind. But, Blues classics aside, in Gardening we planted potatoes with an Irish accent and didn't even open my special care package containing 16 plant pots at low low prices and a bag of free highly poisonous seeds with explanatory leaflet and 14-day no-quibble guarantee.

Today I brought home an official school missive about our trip to the zoo. This educational trip is mildly different in that we will be sleeping rough in the giraffe enclosure, or the reptile house, or the Llama cabana or monkey world, I forget. So the municipal legal disclaimer letter is a little bit more comprehensive and actually asks us (we are 11 years old) if we are pregnant, have emotional conditions, or have been sentenced to custodial corrective re-education under the 'Cohaagen For A Better Mars' Directive 2113 for firearms offences. I mean, srsly, how many of us don't score at least 2/3?

But in the end my chesty-cough proved tedious and Jof's damaged wrist proved tedious and that meant Bud had to cook supper so we got a half-baked mixture of everything in the fridge which may be indeed full of vitamins but can't I just have chocolate pasta?

Working towards a Badge

This afternoon I had supper at 515 because of a 3 hour rehearsal for the Wind in the Willows. Bertie accosted us in the car park and asked us if we knew his mum was engaged: I guess that titbit passed us by in the society pages.

But soon enough we discovered it was only a 2 hour rehearsal, quite important for my personal chauffeur to know. All this counts towards my 'Entertainer' badge in Scouts. We ran through the performance a couple of times and tried on some costumes. Giving Sydney a lift home, she left a fart with us in the car, which was thoughtful.

Deja Mu - for the first time!

Yesterday, Pompey footing-ball club won 4-0 against fellow giants "Grimsby", I think I'd lose if I had a name like that. So that is what all the footing-ball-mad people were talking about today, even all the way through PE, and we were doing tennis. But I suppose the thing that mattered most to me was getting 40/40 on the maths test. This is something I'd never managed before - not because I'm a 7/40 innumerate cowpoke (with apologies to all those cow-pokers and associated dairy workers out there with degrees in applied maths) but because I am a regular 38 or 39/40 merchant, the eternal arithmetical bridesmaid.

Our project group had artistic differences about exactly what we could put on our market stall about wartime rationing, the chocolate bar prizes just had to go and we're now going to forge authentic ration books instead.

And after school I was just gently Minecrafting myself a 3x3 piston door when the actual door went and it was Dear Follower Martin, a person I have known since baby-times as a funny fan of mine, but who I regularly mix up with Blind Uncle Len, who died 5 years ago aged 92.

And so I showed him around and we spoke of physics, as you do. Then the others got home and there was a load of incomprehensible burbling, and not from me this time. Later, the fog descended and the ferries and passing night-time ships mooed their foghorns incessantly. I have heard this before (deja mu) but it's still pretty annoying.

Transcendental Medication

Maths, Maths and more Maths. That makes 3 Maths. See, I'm good at it.
Later, it was English. The standard form is a quantum of text and a randomly variable amount of questions, with a relatively high probability of being at least tangentially relevant. Sum total: boredom. (Baud rate of 100%, this'll never help me to become a Geek Orthodox Priest).

Jof was home before me so I got my time on Minecraft while she ironed and Bud sorted my Ringgits and Roubles, each activity a calming palliative after whatever kind of day they'd had.

A Park with Investment Potential

Well, right now, school is a collision of conflicting emotions. I look forward to it - and dread it. We will be doing a project on the Second World War and as such, will be having an Evacuees fayre. Also, we have to present mini-projects on our stalls in our allocated teams, I have 'Rationing'. Bud said that we should have an empty jar and say guess the number of sweeties in the Jar, win sixpence, but I think it's stupid. But so does Child A, who never shuts up. In fact, you can tell him to shut up while both teachers are telling him to shut up, and he will turn his chair round so he can talk to me more easily. I am looking forward to being in a different school.

Park Monday began (again) today and this time it worked brilliantly. The weather was acceptable, I took Ben home and we got to the park on time, then Robert and I came back to mine and raided the food cupboard, definitely putting a certain someone in charge of the plantation, lucky we'd bought all that cake yesterday. And we went back and we ran around and played football with varying degrees of success and Erin joined us and so did half of my class and, at one point, 4 Puddle-adults. Johnny told me about their sperms project and how they drew nuclear-powered jet engines on them to make them go faster, or gave them 'Blast' capability to kill all other sperms.

At Scouts I had Hurting Leg Syndrome and I stood dutifully for 25 minutes waiting for the rest of the Pack to shut up. Even when they were being told to shut up they discussed being told to shut up, danced, swayed, poked each other and blathered. It cannot just be me: I am surrounded by babblers.

In the end we discussed making a film for a badge and I got the Model Makers Badge and got invested, which is where you make the Scout Promise in front of a god of your choice to be a good Scout and help old ladies cross the road and stuff. Flynn told me all about 2 spiders having sex in a hole in the brickwork by his front door. Do you think we'd get a badge if we did a film about that?

Cake for Breakfast

Got up with an 11 in it and the fridge was empty. We could have eaten in the supermarket café while the shopping was being done but I opted for a roadside café a little nearer home. In the end we walked bleedin' miles to one that Jof had seen called the Cinnamon Café.

The food was nice if slow, I had a jacket potato. But the one complaint we both had, was that we were still hungry. So on the long trek home we popped into the Co-Op and bought chocolate and biscuits and cake, if your breakfast doesn't have a cake course you're just not trying.

Later I challenged Jof to 3 hours of Minecraft and I filled her house full of chickens and set fire to it with a Rain of Lava. She is quite good at chopping trees but I'm much better at everything.

One of my maths homework questions was draw a radius inside the circle printed on the page. So I did a radius, discovered it was a diameter, scrubbed out the excess radius and re-did the first radius a few times to make sure. Problem was, it now looked like a set of traffic lights on fire, and Bud made me draw my own circle and do it again. Spoilsport, surely 4 radii are better than one?

NOT Kicking the Bucket

Hello Saturday! So, I was up first and gradually the dyno-sores re-animated and complained about tired bones and stuff.

Nowadays there is a distinct gap between getting up and actually having to do anything and I took full advantage. Now that I am a Full-Blown Scout Scout, I have wide-ranging responsibilities including helping the Scout Group Quartermaster get wood. Every Scout meet needs a bonfire and we have special skills in getting wood: in the past we have obtained pallets, cot beds, logs, chairs and many other cast-off furniture items from the tip. This time it was pallets aforethought and the garage is a splendid dismantling charnel-house with the lump hammer and the pickaxe and radio. I may not have helped in any physical way but it was done in my name, practically royalty.

Also we have a good line in cardboard boxes which wrap up the destroyed wood in neat packaging for easy distribution from stores. Here is the proceeds of 2 pallets and the kindling we scored from the park, with 2 pallets left to go.

Jof was invited out with the entire massed ranks of the PuddleMummies to drink Prosecco in the historic ale-houses of the Auld Whore-house District and so we dropped her off when I went to Acting. Last time I mentioned that I have so many hats and wigs and props that I should have some kind of giant bucket with my name on, to keep all of my stuff separate for the Under Milk Wood play. So, as per the unwritten laws of parenting, Bud bought me a giant bucket and named it 7th time lucky (beer) in permanent pen and took it into the theatre. I got mightily embarrassed by this and said do not even, but the nice kind Theatre Manager said gosh, that's a bodacious idea, well done that boy.

So now my named bucket will appear on stage (behind a prop) for Sydney and I to grab our many wigs and hats from. The car park was full of big expensive cars because a group of men from the RMT Union were having a meeting and telling jokes about women are only cleaners and should stay in the kitchen. On the way home we laughed lots because she has a sound-effects app on her phone and we made up stories about the chicken on the lawnmower who punched the crying baby and went boing and the audience clapped etc.

We had an all-too-brief period of quiet while Jof was out with the Prosecco and the cobblestones and the babbling and we saw 'The Matrix' which was really funny with the bullets and the Kung Fu and the gucky human-pods and the Terminator-style leather coats and then Jof came back still talking and I had to go to bed.

A Lode of Bustards

I am becoming a creature of habit (no, I'm not a Monk) with my little bijou task-ettes getting me to and from school. Daily I collect my pre-prepared lunch from the refrigerator and insert within a freezer-pack, and at the end of the day, dutifully unpack it all again and close the curtains and almost get dressed before going on my tablet. I pay my gardening subs (green fees?) and bring home the school letters, almost training myself for a life of commuting to a non-descript job in Croydon, while leaving notes for the wife asking for new socks. These peas are nice, aren't they, Norma?

And today I got 9/10 in the spelling test because I wrote wednesday. What a load of bustards. And we played cricket in PE and Bud got home before me and Jof came, saw, and went right back out again to a work party. So I was free to do as I wished. Do I look bovvered?

The Return of the King

A pretty normal day at school although it is getting test-heavier every day as the dreaded SATs approach. I don't actually dread them, but you're supposed to, apparently.

I got my lowest ever score in a maths test because Child A came in late and distracted us and Child B keeps turning round and talking to me however many Red Cards he gets, because he can't hear the teacher telling him to face front because he's talking.

And the Head Teacher gave us some good news to take our minds off the upcoming exams. Firstly, we'll all go to London again and visit something called "The West End" where we will see the Lion King musical on one of the giant stages I should be on.

Then, we will all put on our own version of the Lion King with our own sets and costumes and maybe some new songs and lyrical rewrites. Of course, there will be auditions, and I've got my eye on a particular role. I've done the Lion King at my own Theatre and the songs at the other one so hopefully I'll be successful. I go to acting classes after the teachers saw my performance in the school play and told me to join a theatre, so it's all their fault really.

And for no reason, here is a small Edwardian pottery souvenir from the Arcadian factory (Stoke-on-Trent) with a Portsmouth crest and Southsea banner, that I just happened to obtain from a charity shop in Romsey last week with Grandad.

Code of Silence

One of those normal days at school with junior maths for those of us not in the advanced set: French - I have now reached 6% fluency, so at least I'll be able to travel to Jersey: PE with the shuttlecock game (marred by everyone talking) and another hour out of class with Paige preparing an extra-curricular Lego Robot presentation for the student teachers.

Later I failed to notice that Bud had left the house for 40 minutes to sit in the car in silence and wait for the security lock on the radio to release, after the guy at Ford Main Dealers Inc gave him the wrong security code.

The Robots' Return

Today I brought home my Lego Robot following its distant wanderings competing in the First Lego League. It's quite heavy.

Jof came to meet me in between sorting out Buds' car and getting the boiler serviced. So where I wanted to show her our entire Lego Presentation, she only had time to carry the Robot back for me, pack mule that she is. Meanwhile, the Computing teacher asked me to reprogram another Robot. She had an outbreak of student teachers and needed help. I don't know who guards the guards, but I teach the teachers!

The Olive Tree

Today the teachers decided they needed more training and had a day off. Thus, I was free to adopt groovy new hairstyles, religious beliefs and Malaysian children. I did none of the above, but went to see Grandad instead.

Getting there earlier than expected, we had to ask some builders for the entry code on the main gate, and a facilities maintenance man opened the door for us so we didn't have to remember that code either.

Grandad enjoys teaching me maths and geography so he took over from my existing slumbering teachers and we did parallelograms and the international date line and I worked out that the Earth spins 15 degrees an hour, so was able to work out the time in Toronto and Ho Chi Minh City, as you do. He also told me off for being tall, and didn't notice that I yawned copiously during his lesson.

And we looked up the walking route to my new school on the map even though my school isn't marked on it. I always use his swimming pool (I'm not allowed to use the gym) so I played and splashed and floated and threw all the pool floats around for 40 minutes while the adults talked about boring stuff and then we drove into town for lunch.

I was feeling hungry by then which is why I'm sulking in the picture with the miniature daffodils and the Elizabethan mansion. We ate at The Olive Tree pub which had a very fancy menu - too fancy for me - and my fish and chips came with a Jenga-style stack of chips like railway sleepers and Bud had coleslaw in a mini frying pan and Grandad had chips in a tin mug.

Then I bought new shoes from a branch of Clarks where the sales staff seemed glum, and visited 8 charity shops and got DVDs and a red nose. We needed more time really but we had to get the car to the garage so we took some wood and pinecones for the Scout campfire and hastened home where I plugged myself into Youtube immediately, until Scouts.

Accessory to Moider

Dragged myself out of bed at tennish but did challenge Bud to a walk around the park later, because even thinking about parks is exercise, right?

So in the supermarket he got me a laundry bucket to keep my theatrical costume and props in when doing the Wind in the Willows and then he reminded me of my possibly-too-casual park invitation.

Got there in between rainy outbursts and instantly met Nicole from my class and Flynn who has been my school-friend for 7 years and his very very angry kid brother Cosmo, who has not been a school-friend so much as an angry buzzing thing orbiting Flynn, this time in a dragon onesie, not kidding.

Now, obviously I have never actually lived in the park but I have spent an awful lot of time there over the years and so it was nice to meet known faces on a damp mid-winter Sunday.
We swung Flynn on the swinging basket while Cosmology threw wood-chips at him and we climbed and slid and bounced and I helped hold Flynn down while Cosmic killed him, making me an accomplice to murder most foul, nice to do it in real life for a change rather than just on the stage. Apart from that time when *clears throat dramatically* well never mind that.

Now, all sorts of things wash up on the beaches or get left at the side of the roads, and an enterprising young man could pick up all sorts of funny things that Jof will tell us off for bringing home cos of boring, and we got one of those today.

All along the seafront are those big blue metal bins with a do-not-cycle-here sign attached on both sides. Normally I just cycle on past, ignoring them. But today one had detached itself and fallen off, so we swiped it, every house-about-town should have a reflective sign telling you where you store your bikes: so now we have one in the garage. It now shines eerily at you as you open the back door. It was unattended, officer, just like the £5 note found on the pavement outside the chemist.