Expletives to David Cameron

Don't read this if you're my mum.

David Cameron has made my life a bit harder. Probably I'm not the only one who could say that. But this is how he's made life harder for me.

Unless I'm wrong (and this is very possible, as I don't keep up with the detail of British life any more), if you want to go to university in England, you now have to pay 9,000 pounds a year. Or borrow it. Now this is where it's a bummer for me. We have three children hurtling downhill towards college age. Without wanting to assume that they will all want to go to college, but thinking it's likely, that means that either they will have to each take on a debt of 27,000 before launching into adult life, or we will have to find 81,000. Neither of those is a very attractive prospect.

Here's the crunch. University education in the US is fearsomely expensive, but because it has always been that way, a whole system of support has grown up. There are academic scholarships, sports scholarships, loan schemes, and - most importantly for us - tuition remission for family of university employees. The university that Husband teaches at is very egalitarian, so that if you are the janitor and have ten children, they all receive tuition remission (worth about $15,000 a year, for four years). I like that. It's a huge perk. The university has some very loyal janitors, who in real terms are extremely well paid. In our case, that means that I am doing my MA degree pretty much for free (though there are tax implications, which puts it at a few hundred dollars - but in the context of saving $15,000, I'm not complaining). Which is all a preamble to saying that if we decided to stay here long-term - and Mum, since I know you will be reading this in spite of the opening instruction, we aren't - but if we did decide to stay here, we would instantly be looking at saving the family 81,000 pounds. That is not to be sneezed at.

So expletives to you, David Cameron, because you've made it really very attractive in financial terms to stay here. Expletives to you.

Am I up to date with the reality of the situation? Are universities all charging 9,000 pounds as from next year? Is Scotland doing the same, of is this just England (we've always fancied going back to Scotland, and this would be one big incentive). Are universities focusing any efforts on introducing more scholarships? Are any of them thinking about tuition remission for their employees?

For those of you wanting the challenge of a harder question, is it worth 81,000 pounds to us to be living in England, near family, near places we love, near old friends, in a culture we feel more at home with, where you can get a decent cup of tea at will, where John Humphries is on the radio every morning, where you are but a few hours away from mainland Europe, on an island you share with the Lake District, the Scottish Highlands and a whole lot of fabulous coastline, where we can vote, where we feel most who we are, and in whose soil we ultimately want our children to have their roots? Or used to.

How much is that worth? Answer THAT one, David Cameron.

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Cinderella

It's our wedding anniversary on Friday. Of course we'll celebrate, but it's the Lower School Carnival on Friday, 11-yo's last since he'll be moving on to Middle School next year, so he wants (I want) to go. On Saturday, there's an indoor soccer match one of us has to be at. Our lives aren't ruled by our children, honestly, but sometimes the diary is. Just a little. We are under the deadline of a not terribly exciting Groupon which expires on the 31st, so maybe Thursday, although what kind of a non-celebratory night is Thursday, for heaven's sake? Or perhaps Sunday, but Sunday night is a cosy night in, not a fun night out, as eny ful no. (Do other people's minds work like this...?)

I took my youngest two to a production of Cinderella done by our local youth theatre on Saturday. It was very good (though looooong - at what age can you teach actors a bit of pace?) There was a raffle in the interval, and one of the prizes was a 'Night Out Basket', giving two tickets to the opera in February, dinner for two, a night for two in a hotel, chauffeur-driven car, and one or two other goodies that escape my memory. I knew I was going to win. I only bought one ticket, because I had worked out that in the cosmic scheme of things, if not in a maths text book, my chances of winning were as high if I only bought one ticket as if I bought a whole clutch. And I knew I was going to win.

I didn't win. As it happened. Bummer. 7-yo gave me a hug and patted my hand.

On Sunday night, all the 'ready for the week' boxes ticked, or enough of them to make it function on a day to day basis at any rate, we went up to bed, and there was an envelope on the pillow. On the front, there was a fairish stab at our address and a little picture of a stamp drawn in the top right hand corner. On the back was written 'you win!' The page inside read:

Ms. Manhattan and Mr. Manhattan are going to have a hotel in their house till March first. there will be one hostess named 7-yo Manhattan. She will get you breakfust in bed. She will make you lunch and dinner. She will get you what you need whenever you want. She will dell with 14-yo and 11-yo Manhattan. it will be $6.00 for the whole 2 and a half months.

from,

7-yo

I married Prince Charming 16 years ago (glass slippers would have been usefully waterproof on that snowy London pavement, but awfully cold). I now have my very own small, soft-hearted fairy godmother living right underneath my roof (one with a sharp eye for a business opportunity). I shall go to the ball, courtesy of Groupon, on Thursday night, but sometimes I can see that the ball is happening around me every day anyway.

Had a header crisis

OK, so I got fed up with that photo on my header, and took it down. And now I'm fiddling around not knowing what to do with that space. I had plans for the day, and they didn't involve re-doing my blog header. Hm... How did this happen? It was a crime of passion when I pressed that delete button. No malice aforethought at all. Anyway, I'm now looking to YOU for ideas.

It could be a statement, like "Why is Google Chrome SO DARN SLOW at the moment, and is it going to get better or will I have to go back to Mozilla Firefox? I'm already hovering between the two, but I really prefer Chrome. SHAPE UP, GOOGLE CHROME."

It could be a picture. I've always quite fancied having a herd of bison up there, (remember the strapline "Among the bison with my dyson"? I've never quite kissed goodbye to that one). But I've spent hours trying to get a picture of a herd of bison long and thin, header-shaped, and it's not easy. Oh Blogger, I do love you, but you are very inflexible when it comes to header design.

I want to avoid the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes, tempting though that is, and there are some great pictures on Flickr of cupcakes decorated with the two flags. Isn't the internet amazing? You can go to a photo website, and type in "UK US flags", and poof! up pop pictures of CUPCAKES! It's as if the site can read not only your mind, but your subconscious too.

Are you a brilliant up-and-coming blog designer who'd like to do me a header for free? I'll give you loads of publicity. I'll love you forever. Please...

By the way, while you're thinking about ideas for my header, could you also answer a couple of questions? Does John Humphrys still do the Today programme on Radio 4? Just wondering. And over this side of the Atlantic, do you, or don't you, dial a 1 before a long distance or -800- call? Either way seems to work. What is the point of that 1 if it's dispensable? I've been here too long to ask that kind of question outside the cyber world. That's a "new expat" question, and I'm way past that stage. I'm well into the realm of "embarrassing if you don't know".

I think my blog is feeling a little embarrassed too now. Naked and exposed. Do help her out with that header won't you. Oooh... I said "her". So my blog must be female. I didn't know that. See how the internet can tap right into your subconscious.

The shape of childhood

Talking about jam sandwiches, as we were, this seems a good moment to try out one of my theories on you. I have decided that childhood - from a parent's point of view - is like a sandwich. It goes like this.

The years from 0 to 5 are full of change. You can hardly keep up. As soon as you've got used to one stage, you're through it and into the next. Each one greets you not in some considered way, but in a bewildering moment that you feel unprepared to deal with. Your child grows, changes, evolves all the time, and it's easy to feel you're hurtling down a bobsled run without a clue of what's round the next corner.

Then they go to school, and it all calms down a bit, after the initial learning curve (less of a learning curve than a climbing wall where you are roped together with other parent climbers, all of you puzzling how to use the crampons). Between the ages of 5 and 13 or 14, the whole process slows down. The child still grows, still learns about the world, still explores themselves. They have their highs and lows, their joys and woes, and you are part of that. But it feels like it's more of the same. More birthday parties, just with the participants getting bigger year by year. More homework and projects, just with the subject matter getting harder and the level more challenging. More fun and activities, just with the children's energy levels and abilities increasing, whilst your own ones are decreasing. Time can go by frighteningly fast, but the milestones become familiar, and it's a question of "gosh, another school term over already", rather than "what the heck is happening here?". The bobsled run has levelled out into a road that you can see ahead, winding across a gently-sloping plateau.

You've been lulled into a false sense of security. Watch out. When your oldest starts secondary education, you're hurtling down the bobsled run again, banging into the sides, rolling round the corners at alarming angles. Secondary school is a new, bigger climbing wall, without any crampons at all. The parent ropes are much harder to tie, because you're not meeting daily in the classroom or at the gate. The kids are growing, changing, evolving with the speed that they did when toddlers. They suddenly develop new skills and interests, and want to know where the boundaries are. Those boundaries aren't just a gentle expansion of existing ones, as you've become used to, but the edges of whole new territories. You are careering downhill again, and the speed is faster and you have less control than ever before. It feels like there's more at stake, too.

When I had a toddler, I hated that remark that was sometimes tossed my way "Oh, just wait till they're teenagers". I vowed I'd never say that to anyone. But I do offer you my sandwich model. The three stages of childhood. What do you think?

The 'J' in PBJ

When I was a girl, I knew two truths about Americans. They called jelly ‘jello’, and they called jam ‘jelly’. I thought they were a crazy mixed-up nation, based largely on those two facts. I mean, how could anyone live somewhere where it was all so confusing?

Now I am a mature lady, and I’ve lived in America for more than five years, and I know many many truths about Americans. I still think they are a crazy mixed-up nation, but that’s because I think every nation is a crazy mixed-up nation. I still find life here somewhat confusing, but that’s because life is inherently confusing. I have at least managed to sort out the whole jelly/jam conundrum.

Jelly is indeed called ‘jello’ in America. It’s a brand name, so I should probably afford it the dignity of an initial capital: ‘Jello’. It has happier rhyming scope than jelly. Jelly rhymes with smelly and telly and welly and belly (which used to be a deliciously not-quite-rude-but-still-a-bit-naughty word when I was little, but is probably more mundane now). None of those are very inspiring. Not on your Nellie. Jello rhymes with hello and ‘cello (gotta love that initial apostrophe – how many words have an initial apostrophe?) and bellow and fellow and mellow. All rather pleasing, friendly words. “Hello, my good fellow” I bellowed, “How mellow is the music from your ‘cello!” Jello wins hands down in the rhyming stakes.

So far so easy. Any old Brit could manage the jelly/Jello linguistic transition (and see how generously I continue to award the American word a capital, whilst sticking with the lowly lower case for the British word). Now on to the complexities of jam. Incidentally, can you believe they don’t have jammie dodgers in America, they don’t call a police car a jam sandwich, and I don’t think they use the word ‘jammy ‘ to mean uncommonly lucky or flukey (though I could be wrong about that last one).

Living amongst Americans has shown me that my previous understanding (ie that they call jam ‘jelly’) is wrong. There are two different substances to which they give two different names. Jelly is clear, and doesn’t have bits in it. Jam is not clear, and does have bits in it. And guess what? It’s actually exactly the same in British English. Think of the redcurrant jelly you have with your roast chicken. You’d never call that ‘jam’, would you? And what you do call jam, Americans also call jam.

The difference emerges from the usage of the substance. You wouldn’t spread redcurrant jelly on your children’s toast, or make their sandwiches with it. Over here they do. They have grape jelly, apple jelly, strawberry jelly, for that very purpose. None of it tastes very nice, but it’s almost impossible to resist buying it, because the leading brand is called Smuckers. Doesn’t that beat Robinson’s or Bonne Maman into a cocked hat? I always want to call it Smuckers Schmuckers. In fact, I often do – just not out loud.

I like to think that living on a different continent to the one I was brought up in broadens my horizons and gives me greater understanding of my fellow people, and I bring you the jelly/jam issue as evidence of that. See how prejudiced I used to be. “Americans call jam, ‘jelly’.” How simplistic, narrow-minded and critical I was in my youth! My five years here have taught me that I was wrong. What I used to see as an insurmountable difference between the two nations, I now realize was my own error of comprehension. In fact, we are marked out by our similarity. We are two peoples at one in our use of the words ‘jam’ and ‘jelly’. We co-incide. There is unity between us. Our linguistic commonality is seamless. I would quite possibly never have discovered that, had I not moved across the Atlantic. Thus another link is forged in the chain of international understanding. See how I am contributing to world peace, simply by blogging about jelly and jam.

PBJ

"I'll have a PBJ."

That's something of a litmus test. If you know what it means, I expect you've been to America with a child. If you don't know what it means, you're probably guessing, and if you come up with something really creative and witty, you should leave it in a comment and make me laugh. The best I can think of is that it would be what you might write on the bottom of an invitation to a sleepover: Please Bring Jamas.

A PBJ is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's a BLT, without the bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise, with added peanut butter and jelly. It's a standard offer on a children's menu. If your child doesn't want mac and cheese, a hot dog, a burger, a corn dog (corn dog? that's a post for another time), pizza or grilled cheese, then chances are, there'll be a PBJ on there too. Even if there isn't, you could probably ask for one and most eating establishments could rustle one up for your kid. That's because - unlike my house - they will probably have a jar of peanut butter in a cupboard.

My children don't like peanut butter. They didn't test them for that during the immigration medicals which is just as well. I'm pretty sure they don't give green cards to people who don't like peanut butter. They would probably have injected them with the stuff, along with all the hepatitis and chicken pox inoculations they needed. Intravenous peanut butter. I'm sure that would be in the paediatrician's arsenal.

Michelle sums it up well in her post at The American Resident. To most American families, peanut butter is as staple as ordinary butter. Ooh, I've just worked something out. This must be why Americans pronounce Rs in words more than we do (think "burrrgerrr" or "Central Parrrk" or indeed any parrrk, doesn't have to be Central, that was just the one that came to mind). It's because their tongues are permanently stuck to the roofs of their mouths by all the peanut butter they ate as children (they also say "ruf", as in "woof", not "rooooof" as in "Rufus", but that probably isn't to do with the peanut butter). The word "cloying" was invented for the sensation of eating peanut butter.

I can't quite decide if I like peanut butter or not. I like the crunchy kind, on toast, but not too often. I don't like the smooth kind. I don't like the flavour of peanut butter combined with sweet things, so I don't like peanut butter cookies (did you just hear 350 million people gasp?) and I really, really don't like it combined with chocolate (possibly a federal offence to say that in print). Reese's peanut butter cups are horrible. They are a dreadful waste of perfectly good chocolate. Well, not perfectly good as in Cadbury's, but perfectly adequate. Or adequate. I would pay not to eat a Reese's peanut butter cup. I reckon I'm not the only one, because come Hallowe'en, you'll find your trick or treat bag full of them. I suppose it might be because they're in orange packaging, which makes them readily Hallowe'enable (and no, I can't bring myself to drop the apostrophe in Hallowe'en, I'm sorry), but I strongly suspect that many people look on Hallowe'en as a good opportunity to get rid of the packets of Reese's peanut butter cups that have somehow infiltrated their kitchen cupboards.

Peanut butter cups are beginning to remind me of the Two Ronnies. They did a brilliant spoof (rhymes with "roof" so don't go reading it to yourself as "spuf" will you?) on Gilbert and Sullivan. The song "Dear Little Buttercup" contained the lines "Dear Little Buttercup, Please lift your buttock up, For you are sitting on my top hat". Sorry to those of you who are fans of Reese's peanut buttock ups. I've probably ruined them for you forever now.

You may think I've whittered my fill on the subject of PBJ but you'd be wrong. There's going to be a second instalment. Oh yes. So if you're poised to comment about the J bit of PBJ and reflect on the jelly/jam differential, please don't, because that's my jumping off point. Instead, try and come up with a clever idea of what alternative PBJ could stand for.

A holiday in the crucible

There's a competition in Tots 100 to win a holiday, and I'll definitely be entering. You have to write a blog post, 500 words max, about The Best Holiday of My Life. I will write that post, another time, but interestingly, when I first started thinking about it, the holiday that sprang to mind was the week that we took in Colorado, after my cancer diagnosis and mastectomy, and before chemotherapy. I started browsing the photos, and yes, in many ways, it was the best of all my holidays.

For a start, it arose out of the sincere generosity of strangers. A friend of a friend let us use their holiday cabin. It was July, and we had hot weather, but Colorado altitude hot is not the same, let me tell you, as Great Plains hot. It's a dry, friendly, enjoyable heat, not a stagnant, muggy, draining heat. To be away from home, to take a break from the relentless series of tests, appointments, waiting for results, decisions, in the beauty of the mountains, was, metaphorically and literally, a breath of fresh air.

To be honest, I don't remember much detail of what we did. I could guess, because we've been back to the same place three times since, and we now have our favourite spots and activities. They've become traditions. But what I remember from that week, and what I see when I browse the photos, is a moment when we were almost suspended in time. It was a week of peace and calm in the midst of a great storm. I suppose much of that was probably denial of some kind, or hiding, or whatever you want to call that particular coping mechanism. But it was more than that. Looking back, I see how we were in the crucible of life, and yet able to enjoy each other, and have fun, and treasure the days (but not treasure them too much, for fear of thereby investing them with a dangerous significance).

We took a lot of photos that week. There are lots of beautiful nature shots, of woodland, waterfalls, views. There are photos of the children. I made sure I was in a lot of them, because... can't quite bring myself to write why. Just because.

Here's one I love. Out for a walk. The small boy waggling a stick, the mum carrying the water bottle, the little blond girl bringing up the rear. It could be any family. But it's not. It's us.



There was one afternoon when I was on the sofa with the camera, and from where I sat, I photographed the whole family. I have my rules about not showing my children on my blog, but I'm going to stretch those rules a little here.

Here is younger son, 8 at the time, with his friends, the Bionicles.




Here is oldest, just turned 12, not usually much of a reader, but immersed that afternoon in Harry Potter.

Here is youngest, 5 years old, at the table. That's apple juice in the glass, just so you know. Don't you love the way their feet dangle at that age?


And here is Husband, busy in the kitchen area. When I was diagnosed, he read as much as he could on diet, and how you can give yourself an advantage over cancer with what you eat. He took over cooking and shopping, and here he is in action. We still take the trouble to include a lot of anti-inflammatory foods in our diet, and we use the juicer (remember the juicer?) to imbibe quantities of fruit and vegetable juice (though Husband has never repeated one legendary juice from that summer, which he concocted from cabbage, onions and garlic).



It all looks so peaceful and idyllic, and honestly, it was just like that. Perhaps the children needed their own time and space, that week, to process what was going on in their tender lives. Certainly in these pictures they seem reflective. They look so young and vulnerable. I remember sitting there, watching them, managing surreptitiously to raise the camera without them noticing.

Well, we made it through. We are no longer in the crucible, and I'm glad for that. I'm going to end this post with a photo taken in the same place, but four months later, in November, when I'd finished chemotherapy. I look dreadful - gaunt, strained, tired... bald of course. The cabin has a wonderful deck with a lovely view, and even in November, it's a sun trap. Here I am, sitting on that deck, ubiquitous cup of tea to hand, and the reason I'm showing you this photo is to remind us all of what helped me bump along through that time. See what I'm doing? Yes... I'm writing.



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My nephew's a potential blogger!

There are worse things.

My nephew is 21. He's at university, studying French, Spanish and History, and is spending his third year abroad, in Spain, teaching English in a Spanish school. His teaching hours are arranged so that he gets a long week-end every week, so he heads off and is getting to know Spain. He is going to start a blog, and emailed me to ask my advice (I know, I know, how flattering is that?) He is a serious traveler (did South America in his gap year, Central America last summer), and a bit of a photographer too.

So Bloggy Friends, let's do a straw poll on his behalf. Blogger, Wordpress, personal website, or other? Can you recommend any websites that are really helpful on the subject of setting up a blog? I know some of you have written on the subject, in which case feel free to include your own link - though not if it's only relevant to mummy blogging, obviously. I know in our hearts we're all 21 and adventuring every week-end in Spain, but how much did that come across when you were writing that post about setting up a mummy blog?

Please comment if you have something to say, whether you're a regular reader, or just a passing browser. I'm sure it'll help him on his way.

Derek and Joyce

One of my all time BEST Christmas moments was the year that I and my siblings sent my parents a Christmas card from a fictitious couple, Derek and Joyce.

The card was intimate enough that it was clearly intended for my parents and not just wrongly addressed. It greeted them by name, and it cheerily exclaimed "We really must meet up in 1989!" It had one sentence of hand-written news about the children, Faye, Michael and Anne: "All doing well" or some such generality.

We then sat back and watched over breakfast, as my parents struggled to remember who Derek and Joyce were, and - crucially - how they could reciprocate and get a card in the post to them before Christmas. My mother thought that Derek, a friend of my father's living in South Africa, must have remarried in the course of the year, moved to England, and acquired three step-children. My father thought that Joyce was an old friend of my mother's from her nursing days, who'd decided to get in touch again on a whim. This all played out in front of our delighted, conspiratorial eyes.

We left it a day or two, and then confessed. Derek and Joyce passed into family lore, and the next year my parents received another card from them, this time complete with newsletter all about the lives of Faye, Michael and Anne, their grown-up children.

I'd like to say that Derek and Joyce are still sending Christmas cards within my family, but actually, they petered out after two or three. Best to leave a joke at its height than flog it to annual death. They did make a guest appearance, more than a decade later, when they left a card at the wedding of a friend of mine, signing it "With fondest love, and we're just sorry we can't be at the wedding ourselves. Hope you like the present, and if not, we've included the receipt so you can exchange it" - but of course there was no present or receipt. A few months later, Derek and Joyce sent my newly-wed friends a Christmas card. "So sorry not to have been with you for your special day, but we've heard all about it and seen lots of wonderful photos. It looked like a magical occasion, and what sweet little bridesmaids! We do hope you enjoyed the present." The amazing thing was that I got a card back from them. "Thanks for your card. Have a super Christmas. Love from Derek and Joyce". In spite of the anonymous postmark and the disguised handwriting, my friend had guessed who Derek and Joyce's creator was.

I think of Derek and Joyce at Christmas time, obviously, and particularly when I hear God Rest You Merry Gentlemen, when the chorus comes round:

O-oh, tidings of Derek and Joyce,

Derek and Joyce!

O-oh, tidings of De-e-rek and Joyce!

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