There was a meeting at Ruadhri’s school Tuesday night so that we parents could get a look at the new teacher and hear what she plans to do to/with our kids this year. I’ve already had a minor skirmish with her over pochettes plastiques in the form of notes to each other in Ruadhri’s cahier de liaison. I said I wouldn’t buy any and she said well, in that case, we’d just have to put sheets of paper in Ruadhri’s folder as they are, and so there.  I guess I won that round.

Anyway, tonight I was hampered by a headache which has been hanging around for a couple of days – annoyingly I’m a headachey person – so I wasn’t 100% focussed on what she was saying. I think I got the gist, though. She’s quite a stickler for neatness and tidiness which isn’t good news for our Rors whose writing has always been dire. Its total ruin came when the previous teacher but one insisted the kids used a stylo plume (fountain pen) for writing with, but didn’t give them any guidance on how to hold the damn thing. I soon discovered Rors was holding his upside down and we’ve been battling ever since to sort his writing out. He won’t listen to me or Chris, of course, and still wouldn’t, even if we were the only other two people left alive with him. Hopefully this teacher will sort things out. Otherwise Rors will just have to become a doctor where his illegibility will be a big boon!

There was an absence of text books, which I didn’t pick up on at the time owing to feeling fragile. I asked Rors about them when I got back home, and he said cheerily that teacher couldn’t afford any.  Oh no. Another year of photocopies in blurry shades of grey. The school also can’t afford classroom assistants. Up to now there’d been two at St Marien. This year teacher will be relying on parental help so she can take the kids on outings. There are only a relative few of us who are home-based during the day, either through self-employment like Chris and I, or because of family commitments, and thus available to help corral kids safely into and out of coaches and various concerts, sporting competitions etc. But how can a school not afford books? Or staff? Those are kind of the key things, surely?

When I’m back with it properly, I’ll have to poke around and find out what’s really going on.

Giveaway news to finish with. Pat won the llama yarn goodie which I was offering to celebrate Wool Week. Sorry you couldn’t all win, but I’ll have more giveaways soon, so hopefully you’ll get something eventually. And you can all get a free copy of Oh Gran from Smashwords in any ebook format you want.

Off for another paracetamol and then I shall watch the windswept Tour of Britain.