Filling the gap!

"So are you bringing a foster child home tonight then?" says Tinkerbell Mushroom.

No, I say. Not tonight.

"So where are you going?"

"We're going on a course to learn how to be foster carers." I say.

"And then we'll have a foster child living with us?"

"Well, yes, but it may take a while. A few months."

A look of disappointment crosses her face.

"I think that we should have an eleven year old child." Says Gymnast. "That would fill the gap."

"I'm not sure that it works quite like that" I say.

From the conversation you will gather that we are considering being foster carers. Yes, I know we have plenty of our own, but we also have huge house for huge family, and huge family is growing up, so there is room for someone who needs and wishes to live in our mad family for a while. Besides, my friend Jenny sent me a card when Tinkerbell Mushroom was born, with a comment along the lines of offering to make some dresses from curtains for me. So perhaps it's time to fulfil the prophecy a little more. We're still three short of the Von Trapp family.

Of course, to children, it all seems so simple, and to them it wouldn't be unreasonable to have one that happens to fit into gap that I carelessly managed to leave out when having five children. And they don't understand that a placement is not necessarily a long term one.

Some people may not consider that we have much of a gap. With five children ranging currently from 7 to 16 there wasn't much space for many more pregnancies in the 9 and 3/4 years. But, it is true, there are four years between Sensible and Gymnast, which being more than the "around two years or less gaps" of the others is in their perception "a gap".

We may of course do supported lodgings though for 16+ year olds. Something favoured by the fostering team as they have so few who are willing to go down this route.

"No" protested ED. "We want a little one." By little one of course, she means "baby" that she can dress up and take to the park.

"In a few years" says Hubby, "you can have your own babies to mother, but right now whoever we foster needs to be part of this family and will be placed with us because they need a home for a while."

"I don't think that ESOS would like the thought of another older teenager though." She continues. ESOS, being on a school trip away in France is not here to comment. So the jury can remain out on that one.

The one good though, is that although they all have some very interesting ideas and visions of said foster placements, not one of them has objected to the thought of sharing their lives with another.

Yet.

And in the meantime we are only a few weeks into the course. We need to be approved as a suitable foster family, and um ... if they do deem us suitable candidates, have the house approved too. Electrics, plumbing, heating...

Now that will be an interesting few weeks...

Parenting is very hard sometimes.

Sometimes your children hold a different view to your own. As parents it is so often that we wonder if we made the right decision, and if we were right to stick to our guns. Tony Blair who as we all know is exiting the Government today, once said that being a parent is harder than being a Prime Minister.

In the case of the flood the other day, all three of my older children were more than a little upset that I had suggested that it would be safer to stay on the bus than to try to make their own way home.

Today, Hubby saw this on the Times website and sent it to me by email:

The others to die included Ryan Parry, 14, who was swept to his death in a swollen river in Sheffield while returning home on Monday. His father Chris said that the teenager phoned him after school to say the buses were not running and he would make his own way back.

Mr Parry told the Daily Mirror: "I've been over that short and sweet conversation 10,000 times. I can't think about it now. I'm in bits.

Sometimes as parents you know that you have made the right decision.

And when teenagers make their own decisions, it can go horribly wrong.

My heart goes out to the Parry family.

Noah! I did not plan it!

Rain?

You've never seen anything like it. Well with the exception of my readers who live in the Tropics. You probably have. But for here. For June. It's bad.

It all started in the early hours of the morning. If I hadn't have known that I weren't, I may have thought, before I opened my eyes each time that the rain woke me up, that I might be camping. Our bedroom window was open, and it was that heavy persistent rain that just never stops.......


At 7.15 a.m. the three eldest leave on the bus for school. Sensible's school shoes are broken, so sensibly she finds another pair to put on. These have heels. Quite high ones really. Bus leaving. No choice.

At 8.30 a.m. ESOS phones.

There's a flood at Over. "We are getting off the bus and walking home." "Where are you?" says Hubby. They are around 9 miles from home.

"No don't" says Hubby. "Stay on the bus."

Big discussions follow concerning safety and flooding and drowning and heat loss and everything else on the matter. We believe they are all still on the bus, in a very big traffic jam, but dry.

8.40 a.m. ESOS phones. He has not got back on the bus and is in a friend's car coming home. Friend was in parents' car on way to school and spotted ESOS on other side of the road walking home.

8.41 a.m. More phone calls from the girls. Now very cross because ESOS ignored our advice, and they had run back to the bus. "I thought you hadn't got off the bus" says Hubby.

But they had. They had phoned us when they were on their way home.

They had then run back to the bus to re catch it. A mile apparently. Although the traffic was moving at around 2 miles per hour. So perhaps not quite...

Sensible is in high heels though, so it possibly seems a bit longer. Quite a lot longer.

Next hour. Hubby has gone to work first having asked me to keep him informed. I point out that he won't be here to receive cross teenagers on return home this afternoon. He looks sympathetic in that sort of helpless way and then goes.

Many more phone calls. Much hanging up from girls. All very cross. All our fault. Well mine probably.

Make note to self to put in word with "He on high" to not provide Noah's Ark style floods on school days please, due to inconvenience to children. And me.

Am trying to establish whether or not I can pick them up, but as the traffic jam is now several miles back and there are no alternative routes, the answer is "no". Try to point out the safety aspects to ED and Sensible. They remain cross.

9.30 a.m. ESOS arrives home. Settles in for a day of leisure. "Please could you do the dishwasher" I ask? (As I have important things to do like .........blogging

.......and, actually I do have some work to do which the rain won't wait for.)

"Oh Mum! Do I have to do all of it." "Yes" say I. "All of it! All five minutes of unloading and reloading!"

"All right, all right. There's no need to go on. I was only asking," says he who goes off on a school trip to Correze on Wednesday. It's not even a language trip. It seems to be a holiday. What a hard life these teenagers have.

Point out to ESOS that people die in floods and that it wasn't the best idea to get off the bus and try to walk 9 miles in the rain. "I'm a responsible person comes the reply."

Really?

More phone calls from ED and Sensible. Am seriously in the doghouse due to having allowed ESOS home. Try to point out that this was beyond my control. Closed ears. Firmly closed.

11 a.m. ED calls. Is in school. Not happy - but at least I know where she is. She is still very cross because I have allowed ESOS to come home.

??

11.10 a.m. Call Sensible's school.

She has arrived at 11 a.m. too. Ask if they will be allowed to return home early if flooding continues. School doesn't know, but promises to assess situation.

Meanwhile I await the inevitable argument between siblings this evening and the rant against me.

It's tricky sometimes being a mother.

Especially on those days when the rules change...........

p.s. If you see ESOS ED and Sensible, please tell them that I am trying my best.

Always!

The Secret Of The White City

As we walked through cyber city to where we needed to go, it was an interesting awakening as to how it all worked. White City is the address and white it is indeed. The buildings and decor look vaguely reminiscent of the Big Brother set. Completely modern and scarily angular.

A far cry from the original White City that the site is named after.

It was 5 p.m. as we arrived, and so the building was being vacated by hundreds of staff, or so we thought. Everyone looked the same. All thin and wiry with girls who all had long hair and jeans with trousers that fitted them, but which would be too tight on your average person's Barbie doll.

As we sat down, I looked ahead. Through the window I saw a bar, where people were buying drinks and settling in for the evening. Needing to post a card for my father for Father's Day, I asked someone if there was a post box nearby. I was directed to a post office, which conveniently was placed on site, along with a Starbucks, a Tesco, a beauty parlour, hairdressers and a restaurant. I went back to ED and commented that no-one need ever go home. We decided that all they would need would be a sleeping bag and they could live and work there forever.

In fact, it was suddenly clear as to why the BBC is such a closed shop when it comes to getting a job. You clearly have to be born into the BBC Cyber Community. I think they must have a maternity wing on floor 10 and a retirement wing on floor 12. From here, they breed all their future BBC employees to provide the rest of us with the next generation of newscasters and BBC producers.

This is where they quite clearly get the ideas for the Dr. Who scripts. How ironic. So close to home and so far from the rest of the world.

ED and I decide to have a Starbucks at the on site facility, prior to returning home on the train. I notice that they have managed to get the same pricing structure through to to Cyber City and spend most of the next ten minutes in a daze at having spent £5 on a coffee, and orange juice and two biscuits. And they didn't even give me a china mug for my coffee.

We then went next door into Tesco to buy some sustenance for the train, where of course I could have bought 10 litres of orange juice for that same £5.

As we left Cyber City, we walked past many BBC employees having drinks on the lawns, settling in for the weekend. And then I had a sudden dawning.

I knew the reason why, despite 20 years of applying for jobs in the BEEB, writing to them, blagging interviews, doing voluntary stuff for them with the Action Desk, working on a Community station for three years, writing a newspaper column for three years, and doing professional voice overs for people, I had still not been successful in getting a job with old Auntie.

It isn't that I wasn't born into the community on Floor 10, or that my experience isn't relevant.

It's because my legs aren't thin enough. Not necessarily fat you understand, just not Barbie thin. Never have been. Of course, they won't let people know that that plays a part in their recruitment process. They couldn't. But I know. They can't pretend to me any longer.

And now, with that knowledge I feel so much better about life.

And if you happen to see Mark Thompson on your travels, do let him know that I've worked out "The Secret" won't you?

p.s. A card arrived this morning from Enidd, of, seemingly, another "White City", in Molvania. It took a while to reach me from Molvania, but it got here at last. It's the second one she sent, as the first one has got lost somewhere in postland. But it arrived just in time for Enidd to settle into the USA! Thank you Enidd! It was much appreciated.

Thank you Enidd!:


A picture of White City in 1908. This is the site that was used later for the BBC White City.

Guys and Gals

I had a little bit of business at the White City BBC in West London. (Nothing exciting, and nothing to do with my voice overs I hasten to add.)

Ed (still on study leave) and I, went up together. The train journey up was somewhat overtaken by some "gals" from a certain famous girls school in Cheltenham that shall remain nameless, who took great pleasure in providing loud entertainment for all, in that cavalier sort of way that such "gals" do. ED had danced at their school a year ago, with Gloucestershire Youth Dance Company, as entertainment for part of a school event. I mentioned this to one of them, and so they took a very "little" interest in us in that very insincere way that some "gals" do.

Now, having been privately educated myself, hubby having been privately educated and having sent my own children to the same type of schools until the money ran out, I have come across quite a few "gals" in my time.

They often grow up to be "madams" of course.

Now don't get me wrong, my very best and oldest friends were at school with me, and they are two of the most "unlike that sort of girls" that you could ever meet, and I don't think that I am like that, nor are many of the children that I know from such schools, but............. there is a certain type of product that is sometimes produced from such establishments, and when exposed, it isn't always a very attractive one...

I remember once being asked to a school swimming gala when Sensible was at her private school. Parents were asked to take their daughters out to lunch if they wished. Sensible and I arrived in a cafe and sat down, next to another mother and daughter. It was just before Sensible's birthday party, and the young lady next to us was on the guest list. I asked the "madam" if the "gal" concerned would be joining us for the party, and, after accepting the invitation, she then went into conversation with another mother who had joined us at the table. "Come and join us over here" said the other "Madam". "So sorry" said the "Madam" on my table, but my friends have asked me to join them."

And they went to sit on a big table together with a big group of mothers and daughters, all the daughters being friends of Sensible's, and all due to come to our house to be entertained by us the following week.

Strangely, and I can't think why, this was one of those times when I wondered why we had nearly crippled ourselves providing such education for our children.

Still, back to the train and the "gals" from that famous school......

The said "gals" then asked ED where she went to school. They feigned ingnorance of said school's existence.

At this point I wanted to say.... Actually, you should know the school, because their results are consistently better than yours, and there are only five state grammar schools in Gloucester and Cheltenham all of which compete with your school and others for good places in the league tables...

I didn't. But I wanted to.

ED who frequently goes to parties with people from schools all over Gloucester and Cheltenham, including the "Ladies' College" as they refer to it, wrote me a note using her phone. Something about it being a status thing.

They then dropped in that they were going on "exeat". "So you'll be back Sunday evening then?" I asked. They did at least have the good grace to blush at their boarding school code having failed to confuse the onlookers.

On the way back we settled down on the train again, hoping for a peaceful return.

We were however to be entertained again.

Lads this time.

Although "lads" is possibly a polite word for these guys.

They were very noisy and "entertaining" in a "laddish" (read: polite form) sort of way and as we approached Gloucester, my head throbbed.

I mused that said guys were probably unlikely to ever meet with those "gals" and chuckled to myself that they were unlikely to have heard of the said "gals" college as well.

Which group were the most entertaining I am still not sure.

It did occur to me though that we of course are so amazingly normal.

Of course.

As for BBC White City, watch this space...