Merit

Do you remember when you could stay out late on a weekend and it didn’t mean that for the whole of the next week you would have to be tucked up in bed by 7 o’ clock or end up walking around like a zombie during the daytime for the next seven days? No, me neither – both the fatigue and memory loss are signs of something... ageing probably (I’d like to say premature ageing – but I’m not sure that would be accurate. Although, apparently, 40 is the new black). As you may have guessed, I have been doing a passable ‘Shaun of the Dead’ impersonation this last week after staying out beyond the witching hour on Sunday. I was at a gig (Vampire Weekend). Whilst there I got involved in a conversation whereby we tried to determine who would win in a fight between a Moose and a Hippopotamus (just one of each – mainly because we couldn’t agree on what the correct plurals were for them). I pointed out that for this fight to take place one of the creatures would have to travel a very long way and would therefore be at a distinct disadvantage. With this in mind we decided that a neutral venue (roughly half-way) should be selected – we plumped for ‘Stow on the Wold’. I know what you’re thinking, but no, I wasn’t drunk – and for a very good reason (no, don’t be silly, not because I had to be at work the following day)... no, it was because it cost $9 (£6) for one bottle of becks (nothing fancy, just your normal bog standard bottle). That is pretty much the standard price, in bars, over here – not just in the city centre pubs. I just had the one bottle, with a straw, and made it last. The band were very good by the way, I should point out that the conversation took place before they came on... not during their set... that’s just bad form.
As it turned out I didn’t have to sleep-walk my way through the entire week because I managed to wangle Friday off work. We got a text through early in the week to say that ‘your child will be receiving a merit award at this week’s assembly’. There was no indication of which child it was - although, when quizzed George was pretty confident that it wasn’t him (in fact he was a bit too confident for my liking). It was indeed Harriet that received the award for ‘contributing great ideas to class discussions’... I think she must have put forward the moose/hippo/fight question. (Tafka) Hattie’s class also won the ‘Art Award’ for the week and just got pipped into second place for the ‘Sports Award’. George and Hattie’s faction, Wattle (we used to call them houses in my day) also won the faction competition for the week. In fact, I think they must have known I was going because they certainly made it worth my while attending. I even got to see George twiddling his knobs – he has the role of sound engineer/roadie for school Assemblies. The only technical difficulties encountered came at the end of the Assembly – one of the teachers was getting George to crank up the volume of the music, to accompany the kids back to the class, up to 11. The Deputy Head on the other was of the opinion that it should be quieter – as the music was Dancing Queen by Abba I have to admit that I was on the side of the Deputy Head. Talking of Abba, we must be dangerously near to that time of year again... Eurovision (put your money on Greece – it’s nailed on... I should probably have checked to see if they are actually in it before making such a bold prediction, but hey. I just think that in a bid to stabilise their fragile economy they will be given a confidence boosting Eurovision win... totally on merit of course).
George got a new pair of school shoes yesterday (how exciting is this blog getting?). I only mention it because they aren’t actually shoes at all; they are joggers (which translates into English as ‘trainers’). Because the school uniform is basically a polo shirt and tailored shorts they don’t bother getting changed for PE you just do it as you are... so they have joggers as part of the uniform. The really good thing about not having a separate PE kit means that you can’t forget it, and therefore you never have to suffer the indignity of having to do the exercises in your underwear... not that that ever happened to me - well, maybe once (it wouldn’t have been quite so bad if I hadn’t actually decide to ‘go commando’ that day). At least there were no mobile phones in those days (in fact, I think, the phone was still at the prototype stage) so I can safely say that there is no footage of me, on you tube/MySpace. etc., prancing about in my underwear – well, there may be one but that was a totally different incident. Anyway, George got a new pair of school shoes (trainers) yesterday and they are black, red and flouro green but not necessarily in that order. It may be an optical illusion brought on by its vividness but the flouro green seems to be the predominating colour. We were slightly concerned that these day-glo creations may constitute a breach of school regulations, but the only comment George got from his teacher was that they were ‘awesome’ and where did you get them from? If you too, are thinking of getting a pair they are called ‘Asics Gel-Busselton 2’s’ (that doesn’t sound much like the name of a training shoe does it? it’s more like some sort of code). I definitely won’t be getting a pair - there’s not enough beige in the design for my elderly tastes.
Partly as a treat for their good school work, and partly because we are running out of babysitting options, we are taking the kids to see Florence and the Machine. Harriet is currently a big fan, this week – last week it was Taylor Swift (I was going to say Taylor Dayne but that was an entirely different decade). In truth, Wendy, George and Hattie are going to watch ‘Florence’, I’m just going to give my support to ‘and the machine’. The gig isn’t until August and I will have been to the UK and back by then, Wendy will have had another trip to Sydney and the glow from George’s shoes may have diminished a little.
Next week, Wendy is flying, up north, to Broome as part of her birthday celebrations... I’ve got to go now to warn the Broomies of the forthcoming invasion.
By the way, make the most of the good weather, because the first two weeks of July are going to be the wettest on record (put your money on snow – it’s nailed on).