Loss of opportunity

It’s a strange day.

On Sunday morning I was struggling for some thing to write about, now, Thursday I have 3 very different subjects to be opinionated about. Two I want to write about, the madness of health and safety and the power of friendship, the third and arguably the most relevant to this blog, is now I feel hearing the very sad news about the death of Ivan Cameron. The strangest thing is that I do not want to write about this subject, maybe it’s too raw or too personal, too close to the darkest fear of every parent. Despite that here we go.

The sad news and the media response found me yesterday afternoon. Having spent the day in the self imposed purder of a business meeting, a meeting that had the bones of a positive outcome and real progress, so good day. All made better by a short drive back to the office across Salisbury Plain, looking good in the late winter sunshine. Radio 4 on in the car and the information worked its way into my brain through the clanking and banging that is my brain cells trying to analyse the various things said at my meeting. For anything to get through that cacophony it needs to have a power and a sharp point.

I was aware that the Cameron’s had a severely disable son, to their credit they have handled the matter with a standard of decorum that is lacking from many aspect of modern life, especially politics. As a result I was unaware of the real difficulties this had paced on their family or the fragility of their sons life.

What I think got through to me was the words of Gordon Brown, a man who know all to well the pain of loosing a child and William Hague. The later is a genuinely gift public speaker, I have seen him at a number of Hay events. They both in different ways, intonation and pacing, appear to capture the real sentiment that I felt. Bearing in mind that I have never met David Cameron or any of his family and he leads the party I would least like to see in government, I feel a strange empathy with him.

The death of your child is the darkest fear that looms in any parent, well at least in me. I do not understand the strange a random power that causes me to get of the sofa, table or bed and walk up stairs to see if me kids are alive. This is an entirely instinctive action not driven by what’s on the telly or comes up in conversation around the table, just a left field thought that pops into my head and wont go away until I make the journey.

Okay it started when the kids were very young and cote death is a real fear, all part of the canon that is “paranoid parenting”, but why does it still stalk me. I assume it is just my own neurosis as M does not appear to suffer, or if she does she is wise enough not to tell.

Why didn’t I want to write about this, superstition, well now its exorcism so lets hope this is the right thing to do.

Loss of opportunity is a difficult thing to cope with. Not being able to go to the event, meeting, party, school or whatever is the normal course but for a few, thankfully a very few , it is the loss of opportunity that comes with life, a young life. Every life brings with it almost unlimited opportunity to achieve anything. I have no idea what my kids will achieve with their lives. As with all patents I hope they do more with the opportunities that present themselves than either of their parents. To lose that hope is devastating. Ivan Cameron was very ill and by many standards the quality of his life was poor. However I am certain all those who knew him would have been able to see when he was happy, would have understood when he was laughing and when he was in pain. They would have worked hard to ensure every opportunity to enjoy his life was made available. To do that for a person who cannot communicate in the normal way and who’s own physiology would often be fighting itself, must be exhausting. To do this add having a pretty full on job that is firmly in the public eye and I can only stand in admiration of the Cameron’s. Politicians, for all the failings, do a demanding job, those in leadership roles more so. I have no idea now many of our MP’s, MEP’s, MSP’s, AM’s, MLA’s and Councillors hold down their position was well as caring for a disabled child or adult. The fact that we do not know is testament to their stoicism and our disinterest. Acknowledge and applaud the former and change the later.

This has been difficult to write, a coupe of times the keyboard has got very blurry as my eyes have filled. I hope I can turn those tears, along with the ones splashing on the steering wheel yesterday afternoon and dripping onto my pillow this morning, as the Today programme ran a master class in good journalism with its coverage of Yesterday in Parliament, into more than just business for Kleenex.

On a completely separate not see attached photo. This fantastic bit of interior décor is to be found in No.1 Sergeants Mess, Longmoor Camp. Scene of another meeting this week. Made the more surreal by having the Royal Military Police Close Protection Detail practicing anti kidnap drills with simunition, thunder flashes and smoke out of one window and the Royal Artillery Motor Cycle Display Team practicing out of the other window.

As to the fire place my first thought was that I had entered the High Chaparral and fully expected to find Big John, Buck and Billy Blue Canon all leaning against it discussing the latest crisis with Apache or Mexican cattle rustlers! But maybe that just shows my age.

If this resonates with you go to www.thehighchaparrel.com to relive those nights in front of black and white, 405 line telly (possibly the one in the picture). Begging to stay up you just another 10 minutes to see the end. there was always the possibility that the Canons might not beat the bad guys!

Kids Are Beautiful

Kids are Beautiful

Mine are, yours are, they all are.  It's half term, some do not look forward to this and I am certain that come the Easter holidays and the next half term I may be saying something very different but not this week.   

On Tuesday M had arranged a shopping trip to Bath with one of her girlfriends but a family crisis resulted in her going alone.  I think she had fun.  I certainly did.  By eight o’clock I had both kids hunkered down in our bed playing sleeping lions.  As far as I can tell this game has no rules and simply involves pretending to sleep.  Not difficult, even a MAD can play alone with this.  So you would have thought, “Dad your not very good, your should have your eyes closed said Hope.  That’s pretty tough to do when nestled up with you on the pillow are two serene and angelic faces trying to “sleep” but constantly bursting into fits of giggles.

Okay I am not a good judge of a charterer and I would rarely describe my two as either serene or angelic but on Tuesday there was no other way to see them.  It didn’t last long but it was a great start to a couple of real fun family days.

Sleeping lions led to waking the dog, he tried to put a downer on the day by catching and eating a pigeon in front of us all.  Ella’s response was to start a low frequency sobbing that ended in a plea to take the corpse home and bury the flying rat with full floral honours in the back garden.  Hope simple announced she was hungry too.

Once the period of official mourning was over we move on to Waitrose, the fine bastion of  middle class shopping to hunt and gather provisions for the following days picnic.  Good behaviour resulted in a copy of High School Musical 3 being purchased and the angelic behaviour return as they sat rapt in the back of the car watching as we drive home.

Wednesday was kite flying and picnic day.  Careful planning meant that Jane and M could go to body pump prior to a small convoy departing to Hengistbury Head for some kite flying and picnicking.  Not a breath of wind meant the kites stayed in the cars but a genuine British picnic was produced.  In the middle of February, on tartan rugs, surrounded a gentle, but all enveloping sea mist we all sat down and broken out a full picnic.  

I must admit there is a full post doctoral research project in studying the matter transfer that allows sand to pass through a sealed Tupperware box and inhabit a ham salad sandwich. When we solve that on colonizing other planets will be a walk in the park.

The fun was extensive, the dog thought it was Christmas, nobody downed, the kids got wet enough to have fun but not see the first stages of hypothermia set in.  The day finished in the half decent Hikers café with the largest hot chocolates allowed to be served without a license from a nuclear regulator.

Throughout the two days I was constantly struck by how lucky we are that kids exist.  Who else would allow gown ups to have fun throwing stones in the sea or eat olives on a cheap tartan rug, on a beach in February.

Why will I feel differently next school holidays?  Well Michele will have started working and we will be juggling holiday club with two working parents and kids that want to spend time cuddling up to with Mum an Dad.  And in my case a Dad who wants to do just the same.  How that’s a whole new set of angst.

Tweenaged Dad

Tweenaged Dad

I have just read the article in last weekends Sunday Times about the 13 & 14 year old who have become parents.  My blood is boiling at the righteous indignation of both journalists (Daniel Foggo & Chris Gouray) and those commenting in the article.

The use of the expression “social commentators” to describe hacks and politicos is about as oxymoronic as one can get.  The constant use of the expression “Broken Britain” is the best example of a self fulfilling prophecy I can find.

Do I agree with kids becoming parents? NO.  What is the issue here?  Simple the mythical collective of hypnotics, grouped together as the moral majority, have spouted so much bile and indignation that well balanced and intelligent policy makers have bowed to the corrupting view that a lack of information is a good thing.

“If you tell the dull working class, tabloid reading, big brother watching, X factor auditioning, children about sex they will go off and do it.  Probably on the other side of your hedge.  Thus frightening the nanny, lowering the tone of the area, reducing the value of your Georgian villa, denting the Audi and require one to give some sort of statement to a lower middle class ouik in a Police Officers uniform.  They in turn will spend far too long drinking tea around your scrubbed pine kitchen table, in your contemporary style basement  bistro commenting o you Aga.”

The price of education is hassle for you.  No, not true.  The price of education is that people make decisions that cause you to question your grandfathers values.

Growing up in 21^st century Britain is not easy but then again growing up in 17^th century Britain wasn’t a walk in the park either.  More importantly neither was the Britain of the 1950’s.  The biggest single difference is speed.  Stories move around the neural net of our life a lot faster these days.  The two kids in Sussex will have parallels in the home counties of Churchill, Eden and McMillan.  Only then the story would have been covered up, the grandmother of the child may very well have assumed the mothering role, the father would have been sent to live with relatives, etc.  The child would have been put up for adoption and there would have been a general feeling of embarrassment.

In the 21^st century those options still exist, hopefully the adoption would be more sensitively handled etc.  The real difference is the avarice of the parents.  In our fame obsessed world the parents of these two kids have decided that they can make a few quid by selling their children’s story to the tabloids.

So in walks the tabloid report and off go the columnists of every other news paper winding up there readers and talking about broken Britain.  Iain Duncan Smith, shut up, you now very little, if anything about Britain and what drives those who fill the street of our town and villages, your singular lack of success at the polls tell us that.  Your brand of indignation did not resonate with your own party, the natural home of indignance, so retire gracefully and keep your own council.

Here is a great piece if policy from David Cameron, that ID-S supports.  “early intervention to break the cycle f dysfunctional families begetting further misfits”  the pompous snobbery of that statement underlines the deep disrespect for the bulk of the UK population at the heart of the Cameroon Tory party.  A group bestowed with privilege but no humility thinking that the best way to deal with the disgraceful behavior of the common people is to neuter them.  Do we live in a Hogarth cartoon or modern Britain!

Newspaper reporters and more importantly policy makers (a commitment the sloppy shoulder ranks of the HM press corp are unlikely to ever make)  need to focus on how we create a balanced and stable world for all of us to live in.

The Britain I see every day is far from broken, it has issues, it always has and it always will.  Its not perfect and I know of no magic wand which will create a perfect world.  Talking our country up would be a good start, laced with a degree of self deprecation and honesty would also help.

The message to the kids involved I this story needs to be;  Not a good move, you have done something that will have a profound affect on your life, that of your parents and your daughter.  What this life will be is uncertain but the best thing to do is to live it out of the spotlight, with no celebrity and hope that those around you, will support you through what will be difficult times.  To the parents I suggest you put the cash away for when your Granddaughter needs it and realize that your 15 minutes of fame have passed and anonymity is the way forward.

Jade Goodie may want to die as she has lived in the cauldron of Heat, Now, Hello, etc.  She was a grown up when she choose this course of action and most of those who have been the victims of her collateral damage have been equaling willing adults.

Those involved in this story are innocents, parents and grandparents alike, stay away from the flame it will burn you.

The newspapers need to move on and find some more empty, hollow and self  serving social commentators to provide toxic epithets in support of their ignorant words.

Gosh, I really am quite cross!

Mums Are Amazing

Not news really but its not often that dads get to find this out first hand.  There is a saying about “ before you criticise a person, first walk a mile in their shoes”.  Never could this be truer of life as a modern mum.

Yesterday I had the strange experience of a full-on stand –in Mum.  As any UK readers will know we have experienced some typically winter weather (well its been cold and snowing a lot in February).  This has caused some schools to close for a wide variety of reasons, causing some parents a degree of inconvenience.  Anyway I thought we had avoided much of this hassle but I had be opinion tested yesterday.

I had been in Norfolk at the beginning of the week on business and had a horrible journey back.  Not as a result of the weather or road conditions but a rather strange illness.  Stomach cramps coupled with a feeling of total exhaustion meant the  five hour trip batter was a constant battle to stay awake and concentrate on the road ahead.

I got home and went straight to bed with a couple of ibuprophen and felt a lot better.  The following day I still felt very rough, phoned in sick and did a lot more sleeping, hot bath etc.  By the evening I was feeling a lot better.  Michele meanwhile had been planning a trip up to London with my Sister in law Jane, ostensibly to buy new bras but I have always assumed this is a thin disguise to have a girls day out in town, wine bar, nice lunch, shopping, giggling and general fun.

The weather had had an impact on the train service and we live in the sticks so the roads have not been easy and they were booked and paid for on an early train.  I was feeling better so M went into Salisbury to stay the night with Jane and be in easy reach of the station for the early start.

I was happy with all this and planned to drop the girls of at a neighbours and be in the office for nine.  A great plan, well no plan ever survives contact with reality so the check kicked in at about six the next morning.  I woke up feeling terrible, all joint acing as if had had arthritis and the quezzieness back with a vengeance.  Not to worry, text the boss, pack the kids lunch boxes, get then out the door to Liz’s and back to bed, hot bath latter and all will be fine by the time I need to pick them up from school at three, the plan all along.

So I am in control and breakfast is going well, the kids have washed and got their uniforms n.  I am a modern middle aged Dad, hurrah.  Then the phone rings and M tells me Jane has been listening to BBC Radio Wiltshire and our school is closed, how do I feel and can she still go to town.  What to say?  Yes go I will cope.  I have no choice as she has done this for me on very many occasions.  A few other phone calls to some school gate mums in M’s address boo to confirm the school is closed and what are they doing.

A plan is hatched.  Kids to get out of school uniform and into snow cloths, (what is it about the way kids summarize life in a few words.  Ella and Hope now have a set of snow clothes, for along time Dad drove a “snow car” as it rescued there friends when our village is Essex was swamped in snow a couple of years ago.  All Christmas Puddings are now known as “fire cake” since Granddad south a Shakespearian performance out of lighting last Christmas desert).  We will meet up in the field for sledging, snowballs, etc.  Alright, I can do this.  Caging the kids and dog inside will be far worse than standing around in the snow feeling rubbish for an hour or so should take the edge of the kids and dog, making the rest of the day tolerable until M gets back from town.

A few phone calls and a small shouting episode later we are all standing in a field with a couple of adults and a hell of a lot of kids.  Mostly sliding on flat things down sloping ground.  This sedate activity lasts for about ten minutes until the collected sledgees are joined by the local Mujahedeen.  Dressed in combats, armed with sticks, snow balls and a vocabulary that is very familiar to the readers of War Picture Library. 

We threw snowballs at each other, few over a lot and then Liz arrived with flasks of hot chocolate.  After a brief cease fire the kids form a loose alliance against the adults and build FOB (Forward Operating Base) Chilmark.  A snow structure offering cover excellent cover to the children and a good target for adults.

After a couple of hours we all retreat to our respective homes to warm up, change clothes, refuel, make the run into the local town for bread, milk and Viognier.   Plans for supper are hatched and a deal is done.  The girls can watch TV until their friends come round for tea and in exchange they will behave (fat chance but its worth the nanosecond of peace before the next argument starts).

It never ceases to amaze me that kids can argue about absolutely anything, with a passion that would defeat any sportsman or BAFTA winning screen writer.  But then turn round hug and pay in perfect harmony until the next nuclear exchange.  When this happens I feel obliged to step in wearing my pale blue beret to try and negotiate a deal but I wonder why I bother as it will pass with only limited collateral damage to the furniture carpet and dog.

Back to my snow day.  M had left some great pasta sauce and a clutch of meatballs to feed the kids and I appear to have invited half the village to tea so  better get stuck in.  There was a moment at about 2.30 when I had brokered a brief ceasefire and started to put the shopping in the fridge when I spotted a chilled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and thought that it might help with the salvo of  rockets that the junior leaders of the Wiltshire branch of Hamas were launching in “mummys best room”.  But no that would afternoon drinking whilst childcaring and I am sure Social Services would be at the door in minutes.

The gang start to arrive at about 4.00.  Warfare breaks out on all three floors in the house.  We start drinking, cooking and creating boundaries for the kids to push at.  Table laid and all are no present.  Liz is the boss, Kelly and I just wander along.  The pinnacle of Liz’s amazingness was lining the kids (7 I total) up at the kitchen door to do a hand washing inspection.  Brilliant.

 

So we have a great afternoon, kids depart the table full of pasta, salad, garlic bread, ice cream etc.  We “mums” pull up the chairs pen the next bottle and laugh at Kelly’s choice of dates on dating direct dot com.

By the time M comes home, with just one bra, from a whole day in town, I have had a fantastic day being a mum and whilst this may not have been typical I am convinced more than ever that all Mums are amazing and I will never look sideways at the gaggle that gather around our kitchen table circa 5.30 on a Wednesday with an bottle of vino collapso or two.  If they have had a day close to the one I experienced they deserve it.

Opinion.com

So you come back from the pub, a wee bit pissed and start tapping away on Facebook, Twitter and your blog.  How sad is this?  Very sad or very 21^st Century?  Not sure, will never be sure but I might have an opinion.

The role of snow in good parenting

Its snowing outside, well it is February and one might expect that.  And that’s all I want to say about the snow.  I do want say that if the schools close that’s fine, if it inconveniences a few parents and they have to negotiate a deal with their employers , so what,  If the schools had all stayed open and kids had been splashed by snow or damped by a snowball, the idiots that report the “news” would have said they should have been closed.  Now the story is that caution has overcome sanity and schools closed when they didn’t need too.

As to having to do a deal with the boss then go ahead and do the deal.  I have yet to come across an employer that has specified “must not have school aged kids” in a person spec.  I wouldn’t want to work for someone who wanted to do that sort of thing.  Yes as a boss on occasions I have had the odd less that wholesome thought about a good members of staff disappearing off to have kids or needing the day off for some child related issue.  I suspect part of the reason they are a good member of the team is because they have kids and when they need to they put them first and work second.  I know I do.  Yes there are times when it’s a pain to have to leave early and not meet a deadline, walk out on a  meeting when you feel that those left will make all the wrong decisions etc.  However, in my case all that gets left behind when I arrive at the school gate and have two over excited bundles of child leap into my arms because “Daddies come to pick us up”  the same is true of the excitement in their voices when they discover that “Daddies taking us to school today”.

About the only place that one is not completely replaceable is the role of parent.  Every employee can be replaced but I feel that no Mum or Dad can be.  The Children Society report yesterday said that kids today have a harder life then they did in the past.  Not certain what past that was.  Normally the reference point for these reports is some sort of idealised 1950’s world view that owes more to Hollywood than reality.  I grew up in the late sixties, not with hippy parents but what I would regard as a typical middle class, rural, conservative (with a small c) values.  I to a degree have tried to pass these on to my daughters.  I hear my mum and dad in my voice almost every days as I remind them that words have T’s on the end and that TV is to be enjoyed after spelling, reading and homework.  I suspect that happens to all of us.  Am I at home with my kids as much as my Dad, no, more. My father spent a lot of his working life away from home during the week.  That’s what most working business folk do I suspect.  My Mum didn’t go back to work until my sister was eleven an I was eighteen.  Do my kids have a higher standard of living than I did.  Not sure, they have colour TV and have been on foreign holidays.  They have two parents in the same house.  That’s the same.

I suspect if you quizzed my parents on how good they were at the parenting thing then they would look at their four kids and say “we did okay”  they would be right.  Did they know that when we were and collective of disparate teenagers? No did it worry them?  Did they sit around with their friends and agonise about it?  O I suspect it was discussed with a few very close friends but not exorcised in ay wider forum, that’s what we do.

Does this make us better parents.  No.  When Ella was born someone gave Michele and I one really good piece of adivce.  “If you are going to read bringing up baby books then just pick one and stick to it.  The worst thing is to try and use what you think are the best bits of each one.”  This casserole approach was considered to be the worst of all world.  The best?  Work out what sort of parents you think you want to be and stick to it.  Good advice.  Have we followed?  Just the bits we liked!!

I have been I bed for a little over 24 hours wondering what sort of lurggie it is that is twisting my guts and making me very sleepy.

The odd moments of waking today have been oceans of boredom punctuated by the rainbow that is the BBC  IPlayer with Oz and James Drink to Britain.  What is it about these two blokes that makes me laugh some much.  If laughing is the cure for most ills then I should be back at work tomorrow.  Hurrah, at least I won’t be bored.