The radio had me choking on my wheatabix this morning when it informed me that middle class children enjoy the benefit of educational forays to museums and art galleries with their parents throughout the year whereas less fortunate children (my children would say more) suffer ‘Learning Slippage’, dilly dallying at home causing the brain to go to mush (thanks alot), and requiring relearning on the Monday of what they were supposed to have off pat on the Friday.
‘Your mouths are still blue, children’ I said, surveying the evidence of serious Learning Slippage the day before, when I’d bought myself some time ‘allowing’ them (pushed them out the door) to go to the corner shop for magazines. They’d returned with mock sorrow: ‘They didn’t have the magazines we like!’ This had compelled them to buy a shed load of sweets (slippage!), the centrepiece being ‘Lickety Lips’, a roll-on deodorant-style bottle filled with electric blue syrup to smear over (and stain) the inside and outside of the mouth. ‘That is revolting’ I’d said, delighted it would last for ages and let me finish my e-mails.
I may have a case of Learning Slippage myself, because I don’t actually see how going to the V&A to make a cloth bag or some such is going to help my son remember how to spell ‘stashun’, nor how skidding up and down that slopey bit at the Tate Modern will improve anyone’s simultaneous equations, but I’m willing to be told, and anyway once the radio has begun terrorising me with good parenting directives it’s only a matter of time before we have to go out on one of “Mummy’s awful trips’.
I peeled my mug mat, the National Gallery Free Family Events programme, off the table: ‘Watercolours! We can learn to paint with watercolours at the National Gallery!’ ‘OH NO!’ roared Alfie, ‘YOU CAN’T MAKE ME DO IT!’. But I had the bit between my teeth, and go we did, armed with the promise of extended TV upon return, and arriving at the gallery in time to play in the cloakroom, which is how I garotted my forehead on a coat hook with such force that my vision went weird and I had to sit down quietly for a bit, pushing Alfie and Bonnie forward to join all the bright girls and boys listening to the rules: ‘Don’t touch! And make sure your parents don’t wander off! haha!’ I was still seeing stars as we sat down before the chosen Gainsborough for some interactive teaching, in fact I rather embarrassingly nodded off (knocked out?) somewhere between ‘use of perspective’ and ‘colour tones’, but I rallied to encourage Alfie with his ‘initial study’ (‘that’s a fantastic table, Alfie!’ ‘It’s a dog’). The visiting artist demonstrated how to ‘develop’ the study by building up watercolours in blocks, and all the high achievers set to, carefully mixing colours and eyeing each others’ artwork.…all except Alfie, who decided the best way to sidestep the imminent humiliation was to have a little fun, as with his cross-curricular ‘Portrait of a Tudor Man’ which might have made the class display if he’d resisted adding a pig’s snout at the last minute. So in the workshop, he poured all the water and paint allotted to our table over his initial study (the dog/table) and stirred it wildly to a batter, singing loudly all the while, a challenging smile thrown at me as he wrung it out and lobbed it in the bin: One nil to Alfie.
Happy and fulfilled after this splendid educational foray, the children waited a polite thirty seconds after we got home before switching on for the promised Learning Slippage and I trotted off to my quarters for me-time with the radio and the rock hard wheatabix. ‘MUM! THE TELLY’S NOT WORKING!!’ It was doing that flickery thing that makes you epileptic. Oh Lord, grant me Learning Slippage, and grant it now. ‘Leave it to me’ I said, frantically unplugging all the plugs (‘Thanks a lot! Now we have to go right back to the beginning of the programme!’) and sticking them in again, which is how clever old Alan fixes it. ‘It’s broken, children.’ I said, reaching for the pills. Bit I jogged it accidentally, and all the lights flashed on. It started humming…and so did I.
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Friday, 16 July 2010
Concerto
Just played in my first orchestral concert for years! I was so excited about the children coming to watch! I was playing the viola - how better to inspire them to practice diligently and perhaps trigger a life-time's enjoyment of classical music? But as the day grew near, two dropped out because something better cropped up - parties, sleepovers - so in the end it was just Bonnie and good old Maddy. ‘Bonnie,' I whooped, 'you can sit right in front of the violins and watch them at close range!!’ ‘I don’t want to listen to a few STUPID violins. I want to go to the Steam Fair and GO ON THE OCTUPUS!’ she bawled.
I strapped her into the car nonetheless (‘most children would think themselves lucky...!’) and brushed off the shoe-prints she’d stamped on my concert dress. It was unfortunate that the Steam Fair coincided with my concert, but I was confident that culture would win over candyfloss. In the meantime, I struck a deal that she would watch half the concert, get an edible treat on the way home, and I would take her on the Octopus at twelve noon the next day. The words 'spoilt brat' never crossed my lips, I swear.
Once seated in the concert hall, my family group were transported by the glorious Grieg Piano Concerto. Glancing over from the second desk of the violas I spied them concentrating on the music with eyes shut and mouths open, excluding Bonnie who was transfixed by the pianist’s peach gown; the combination of balmy evening and vigorous tinkling were turning it dark orange around the bosom area as she became drenched in sweat, a social faux pas of the gravest order by the look on Bonnie’s face and her pointing at the offending armpits. Alan whispered something in her ear – at a guess concerning the edible treat – and she then sat quietly, staring into the middle distance, no doubt soaking up the heart stopping beauty of the final movement. The audience rose for a standing ovation as the magnificent performance ended, and I rushed over to receive Bonnie’s congratulations and witness her awe-struck reaction to the music first hand.
‘That was the most BORING thing I have EVER heard’ she said, ‘Let’s go Daddy – I want my treat’.
The next morning I knew I had to get out of the Octopus ride, for I would be sick; the obvious solution was to allow Alan to do it after he’d returned from remedying his golf swing; but when I explained my idea to him, he said he might not be able to get back by noon, but he’d try, so I knew the score. With mounting unease, I tried entertaining the children with good old-fashioned family fun so that they’d forget all about the boring old steam fair, but Bonnie positioned herself on the garden gate straight after breakfast and was shouting ‘Let’s Go! Let’s Go!’ I even got out all Alfie's model-making sets that birthday guests mistakenly thought he had the fine motor skills and enthusiasn to conquer, and squinted at the teeny weeny B52 bits, but he preferred turning the telly on and off by banging his head on the TV table, a trick which relies on excitingly unpredictable circuitry, a wobbly house, and a seriously bored child. No, it wasn't working, so I grimly accepted defeat, rang my Dad to say I’d always loved him, and walked to the Octopus, there to have my stomach pulled out of my mouth and shoved back in a thousand times before being deposited back on firm ground whence I fell over, and was led home by the hand and put to bed by Alfie and Bonnie. I am hoping to recover by the next orchestra rehearsal.
I strapped her into the car nonetheless (‘most children would think themselves lucky...!’) and brushed off the shoe-prints she’d stamped on my concert dress. It was unfortunate that the Steam Fair coincided with my concert, but I was confident that culture would win over candyfloss. In the meantime, I struck a deal that she would watch half the concert, get an edible treat on the way home, and I would take her on the Octopus at twelve noon the next day. The words 'spoilt brat' never crossed my lips, I swear.
Once seated in the concert hall, my family group were transported by the glorious Grieg Piano Concerto. Glancing over from the second desk of the violas I spied them concentrating on the music with eyes shut and mouths open, excluding Bonnie who was transfixed by the pianist’s peach gown; the combination of balmy evening and vigorous tinkling were turning it dark orange around the bosom area as she became drenched in sweat, a social faux pas of the gravest order by the look on Bonnie’s face and her pointing at the offending armpits. Alan whispered something in her ear – at a guess concerning the edible treat – and she then sat quietly, staring into the middle distance, no doubt soaking up the heart stopping beauty of the final movement. The audience rose for a standing ovation as the magnificent performance ended, and I rushed over to receive Bonnie’s congratulations and witness her awe-struck reaction to the music first hand.
‘That was the most BORING thing I have EVER heard’ she said, ‘Let’s go Daddy – I want my treat’.
The next morning I knew I had to get out of the Octopus ride, for I would be sick; the obvious solution was to allow Alan to do it after he’d returned from remedying his golf swing; but when I explained my idea to him, he said he might not be able to get back by noon, but he’d try, so I knew the score. With mounting unease, I tried entertaining the children with good old-fashioned family fun so that they’d forget all about the boring old steam fair, but Bonnie positioned herself on the garden gate straight after breakfast and was shouting ‘Let’s Go! Let’s Go!’ I even got out all Alfie's model-making sets that birthday guests mistakenly thought he had the fine motor skills and enthusiasn to conquer, and squinted at the teeny weeny B52 bits, but he preferred turning the telly on and off by banging his head on the TV table, a trick which relies on excitingly unpredictable circuitry, a wobbly house, and a seriously bored child. No, it wasn't working, so I grimly accepted defeat, rang my Dad to say I’d always loved him, and walked to the Octopus, there to have my stomach pulled out of my mouth and shoved back in a thousand times before being deposited back on firm ground whence I fell over, and was led home by the hand and put to bed by Alfie and Bonnie. I am hoping to recover by the next orchestra rehearsal.
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