The Steam Train of My Mind

Why is it some days we wake up and our minds are racing, sprinting, much more than the normal chugging, positively buzzing and breezy? It's only 10am and I've potted my hanging baskets, 'phoned catalogue companies, dealt with all correspondance, read my inbox, tidied the house, done two lots of washing. Am I running or am I hiding?

This year two men have told me they'd love to have sex with me - please note, I used the word sex. When I spoke to one of them about this fact, and asked if love entered into the equation, I was told it didn't. Men are men and sex is sex and women are vehicles for men's needs (so I was told). So I am, in fact, a vehicle. Steam train? No, I believe trains are more locomotives than vehicles. A car maybe, a swish dashing red ferrari? Well no. In fact I am not loved. So I am more a Robin Reliant - I am not loved but I am great to have sex with. If it was just one man who told me this I could accept it - his problem, not mine. But it is two men and as I have only really loved 3 men in my entire life and 2 of them have told me this I am wondering: is it me? Am I hard to love? I must stress that both these 'loves' of my life and I had relationships in the past and both were trying to resurrect them. Or rather I was (one of them - not both), not knowing that it was rumpy pumpy in the sack he wanted rather than love in the mist. The other one wanted to set me up as his mistress in the south east - I could take my adorable daughter and live the lifestyle I had formerly been accustomed to before my change in circumstances. Mistress. It has connotations of 'wife in the background' so I declined - graciously of course. He was very pissed off and that's when 'it' started. I walked away. Yet the other relationship is harder to walk away from as our lives are 'entwined' as it were. So I've worked on it since that fateful night when I learned I was an old car. And it's just as well - a week after hearing the incredible news I went to stay with a friend in London to clear my head and it was there, in Kingston upon Thames, in Barclays Bank, on the third floor, that I burst into tears. The poor girl had only told me I couldn't extend my overdraft and there I was, flooding over her desk. All the other bankers were looking at me pityingly. She must have felt like Scrooge for it was a few nights before Christmas - she gave me many options, hoping to cheer me up. But I sat there thinking of old cars, rusting away, bangers on the scrap heap, all scratched and scraped. Was I old scrap? At the time I thought I was. Yet I made myself a promise. I was going to win him back - yeah, that was it. I'd get him. I'd show him what I was made of, why he fell in love with me. (When will I learn?). I'd lose weight, earn great money - anything that pays loads whilst letting me do the school run, keep house, shop, and chauffeur my 7 year old around to as many after school clubs as you can stuff into any one week if you please.

That was almost 6 months ago now. Sadly I haven't lost 2 stone (yet). But something is going down and I don't know exactly what it is but it feels fab. By showing him I was sexy as hell and interesting to boot and really worth the effort I now feel - I'm obviously having a l'Oreal moment - worth it. I am WORTH IT. Has anyone out there seen 'Under The Tuscan Sun' (I'm sure she ran off with my life, the life I should be leading if only I were brave enough: I speak Italian, I like Poles and I love the sun - is she my sister? my double?). Anyway. If you have seen the film (my daughter and I have watched it 10 times in the past 6 months) you have to remember the moment when Frances gets back from Positano (fab place - love it - always buy jumpers) and hangs on to the bed posts doing an 'oh yeah' kind of dance, celebrating the fact that she still has it. Well I feel like that. In trying to show someone else that who I was is still who I am I got the chance to dust myself off, polish myself up and shine. I mean shine. No-one may have noticed but I am glistening. And the more I glisten the more I want to eat apples, big juicy shiny red ones, instead of chocolate. So look out world 'cos soon I will be both glistening and toned. And you know what? Sometime soon I am going to ask the question again, the one where I say, is it just sex or do you love me? And I know my answer. If he says he doesn't love me then he is out the door. If last time taught me anything it's that this time I will cling on to my dignity by my fingernails if I need to, until they are jagged and torn but at least I will be standing tall (which would be fab as I'm only 5'4"). I would not prove myself again to any man. I am woman and I am worth it and I am worthy of love (as well as sex). For now though, funnily enough I am enjoying the sex, because it is on my terms (deservedly so after being called an old rust bucket). Sex with him has always been good and it means I don't have to even daydream about escorts/agencies/asking out an old school friend, or whatever else I may contemplate doing (on-line dating maybe??). No. I am fine on that score and also it keeps me fit and so much more fun than conventional exercise: he may think he's getting the last laugh but he is so not.

As for today, it's back to the garden for me. I've bought myself some pink gardening gloves and secateurs as an early birthday present. Last Sunday I saw a pink plastic wheelbarrow. Now I've never considered a wheelbarrow before but having trotted around the garden today back and forth and up and down I now see the benefit of them. And if it's pink well so much the better. I don't give a toss if he's cynical about it. You see he says I talk too much (perhaps I do but I don't like the silence he inhabits). He says my friends and family don't like me. Well perhpas they don't but till they tell me I'm reserving judgement on that one - could it be that as he chooses not to socialise with family or friends he could be jealous that I do? He says I'm not interesting 'cos he isn't interested in what sparks my imagination. Well maybe he isn't but I'm not going to stop being interested in education, psychology, relationships, people, languages, food and wine and travelling overnight. So it may annoy him and piss him off but I'm buying a pink wheelbarrow. Not only will it be useful I will push it up and down the garden when he's looking, shouting 'look at me! i'm here, i'm staying and i like who i am'. It will be a real moment. Whose moment? My moment. And it will be for all those moments and times he rejected me and I wore black so as not to draw attention to myself in the hope he wouldn't call me 'lardy' (yes, really). It will be a Diana Ross moment, an 'I'm coming out, I want the world to know, gotta let it show.....There's a new me coming out and I've just gotta live, and I just gotta give, I'm completely positive'.

Just off to the garden centre. It's going down and it feels great.

Gaffes

Well I can't believe it. I came on this morning and raced through a comment on a programme I had watched last night (and I am racing now between tea-time and bed-time for a 7 year old - why am I always racing? Feeling so tired I meet myself coming back?). So this morning then. Between burnt toast and school-run and the arrival of Reflexologist (one monthly luxury I would no way be without) I posted a short piece - my first - and didn't check it. Mistake - big mistake - I feel like waving those 'Pretty Woman' bags at myself as I say this because it was a pretty woman moment. I gaffed. Carrie Bradshaw would roll off the bed in hysterics - I wrote 'their' instead of 'there' and when talking about Tom forgot to end his 'brackets' and left them strung out till the end of the sentence. Worst thing is, I don't know how to edit a posting - or even whether you can. So it will stay there, forever pink, forever wrong, and forever I will see Carrie laughing, saying I am a lesser writer than she. Well I've learnt something from my 'Learning' posting - I will read before posting in future. See ya.

(quick update - dashing as usual - daughter off school sick, the big red bowl is being yelled for - i learnt to edit and i did it. so my big 'pretty woman' moment is not as devastating as first thought. hoorah. now off i go before it's too late).

Learning

I'm calling this Learning as it is so much more than Education. I saw a series of three programmes recently on three pupils, Tom, Jeremy and Libby going from Wells Cathedral School to Preston Manor in Wembley with their mentors, Moeed, Mustafa and Michelle (I hope I spelt the names right as I have no written reference). It was so interesting. The Head of Wells Cathedral school had said that the school - one of the oldest private schools in Europe no less - was there to teach children to learn, and that they could then go on through life with this learning capacity being their prized tool.
The Head of Preston Manor on the other hand explained that their Comp was large - with 1400 pupils, almost three times the size of Wells Cathedral School. And different - being situated in Wembley it was one of the most diversely multi-cultural schools in London. Outside the school there were sometimes incidents involving drugs, knives and guns. But the Head explained that rather than being a bad thing, although these events always affected the pupils, it also acted as a learning ground that would prepare the pupils for 21st century living.

The dilemma I was left with was this: does a prep school prepare you for life in our world today as well as a huge comp in London does? Obviously geographics come into this but then so does money. Can money buy you out of 'life' as we know it and purchase you privacy, protection and cotton wool?It was interesting to see what the pupils from Wells Cathedral School thought of school life at a comp like Preston Manor. Tom was looking forward to returning to Wells, but only because he missed his toast at break time! Yet he would prefer to be able to take some of his new 'mates' with him. He had found that altering his speech - saying 'init' a lot instead of 'isn't it' - helped him become accepted, to open himself up to people and to make friends. Jeremy was just lovely and became 'Jez' at Preston Manor - he was open and willing from the start and just a brilliant lad. Jeremy would have preferred to stay at school in Wembley. As would Libby, who loved the experience - it was endearing to see how moved Libby was by the reception she was given from the other girls in Year 10, especially as some of the girls sang her their own composition, a welcome song, during break time in the canteen. Libby was stunned by this and rightly so.The three of them arrived at Preston Manor expecting to have to try to fit in, to be accepted, yet they were welcomed with open arms. What a tribute to such a diverse comp in London, that the pupils there were open, friendly, helpful and welcoming, willing to share and enjoy all they had with these three. What it showed as well was how we are all just people - young, middle aged, old - we are all the same whatever our 'packaging': private school, state school, posh house, social housing - we are, at heart, the same, with the same needs and a shared interest in each other. When Jeremy started to say that he felt privileged, I thought he was going to say privileged to have been to Wells Cathedral School even though enjoying Preston Manor. But no, he said he felt privileged to have been one of only six pupils in the country to have taken part in such an 'experiment'. And the three pupils from Preston Manor - Moeed, Mustafa and Michelle - were happy with where they were thank you, and would like to stay. They are living proof of the fact that if you make the most of what you're given (intelligence, humour, schooling in whatever form, family) then you will shine alongside even the brightest star. I loved watching them. Overall, all the pupils involved (except Tom) questioned the money spent on private education, each feeling that both the teachers and the lesson content was as good at Preston Manor, a large state comprehensive, as it was at the prestigious (and expensive) Wells Cathedral School.It was a fab programme but best to remember that Preston Manor, although large, is one of the best comps in the country with a Head Teacher who has helped turn it around from a failing school. My lasting impression was that I will be happy to send my daughter to a state comprehensive but I would like to be able to choose her a good one, the best one I can find.

Yet by then will I have that choice? Even if I make the effort and move into the desired location, I may not be able to send my daughter to the school of our choice, closest to us, and within our catchment area.

The Government are piloting a scheme in one county of the UK where the comprehensive your children are sent to really will be a lottery. You are notified by post which school your child will attend and that’s that. They are ‘mixing it up’ so as not to get an imbalance: in some schools the pupils come from many cultures and backgrounds whereas in other schools the pupils are predominantly white and middle class. The new school ‘lottery’ means there will be a mix and all schools will then become similar. And if this ‘lottery’ works, it could be rolled out across the entire country.

What is the betting then that Private schools will become fiercely sought after by those who can only just afford it but who don’t want the alternative: after all, isn’t it our right as parents to choose our child’s environment, especially if we have moved to a particular area with that thought in mind.

It really does put the meaning of fair into question, as what some may see as fair may not be seen in the same light by others. It may herald a change in the way children are educated in Britain: we may be nearing a future where private schools are not the domain of the wealthy but are the school of choice by parents who refuse the alternative. Democracy may still be the name of the game, albeit in a different format.

My First Day

just like at school, first days can be scary yet fun. come join me (please!) 'n tell me what you think. from tomorrow i will have plenty to say!