Emigrate

Eight years ago, I was sat at a dinner table next to the sister of a colleague, and over a few glasses of wine, listened with incredulity to the details of a programme that she was in the process of producing for Channel Four. It had been imported from Holland, and was going to be a social experiment featuring, amongst others, a skateboarding nun. I was sure it would be dreadful, and would never find a following amongst the cynical British Public. Sadly, I was only half right.

Hailz's sister won a BAFTA, and is doubtless as rich as Croesus. I spent today rehearsing Magic Flute in a freezing church hall with an antique piano and battered tea urn bubbling noisily in the corner. Goddamn those artistic principles. And now, again, I find myself trapped in the same house as Big Brother, with a partner who is ‘only watching it to see who’s in it this year’. Wasn’t the whole point of Orwell’s Big Brother that he should be avoided at all costs? This year, the same Dutch production company are producing a programme featuring a competition to win a kidney from a terminally ill donor. As soon as I can get my leg through the metal detectors at airport security, I’m leaving the country.

Maths

1 o’clock, Monday. Having locked myself out of the classroom last week, this week I am locked in. Supervising an exam clash. I dutifully didn’t bring any marking or reading, even though it turns out that I am, in fact, supervising two A’ level mathematicians eating their sandwiches. I’m sure even the ever-vigilant exam board wouldn’t mind me taking a moment to blog in these circumstances. And it ensures that neither of them is using the internet connection to upload the morning’s questions. Surely the sort of thing that a mathematician could do in the blink of an eye. Though it would, of course, require imagination. And English departments jealously guard A’ level students with that sort of faculty.

Only a maths department could incorporate such a room as this one. It is at the top of four flights of stairs, is roughly 15’ square, and is painted in peeling institutional magnolia. The only few adornments to the walls are posters from the National Office of Statistics pointing out, amongst other things, that pupils are less than half as likely to list maths as a favourite subject at secondary level than they are at primary school. Go figure. There are three small windows providing a magnolia-framed prospect of the distant cricket pitches and the vertiginous drop to the gravelled car park. It is, perhaps, not surprising that the windows have bars on them. Jumping must often seem like quite a favourable option to any poor sods trying to achieve an education in here. Even the computer I am using places literacy far enough down its list of priorities that I had to install ‘Word’ when it started. I might write some poetry on it in a moment. The shock will probably finish the poor machine off.

Meanwhile, back at home, William’s various health professionals are holding a ‘multi-disciplinary meeting’. It is a sad reflection of the boy’s plight when he has been reduced to an agenda. However, in a glorious twist, it has proved impossible to get adequate childcare for William today, and so he will be making an unscheduled appearance at the meeting himself. It will certainly focus everyone’s minds, though not necessarily on the issues at hand. I suspect William’s own choice of agenda will focus largely around playing with Thomas on any flat surface he can find, and generally hogging any limelight going. I am pleased with his overall world view at the moment. First thing this morning, he was quite insistent that Mummy should change his nappy, and Daddy should give him a cuddle and read a story. These are parental roles I am quite happy to reinforce. William is still my hero.

Duck

A week of moonlighting. Two Verdi Requiems, and a comedy concert of choral arrangements of easy listening. Robbie Williams in five parts. Which, if it wasn’t embarrassing enough, was coincidentally attended by two Tonbridge colleagues. I suppose it is too much to hope that a career in the performing arts can be done on the quiet.

For the record, two Verdi requiems in a weekend is a very bad idea. Especially whilst fighting off a cold. It is quite difficult enough trying to make pages of top notes sound like a sincere prayer to the God of vengeance, without having to do it whilst worrying about whether or not it is an appropriate moment in the score to blow your nose. I got through them. Just. But not without a few distinctly croaky moments by concert no. 2. And, as Tessa was singing soprano and had invited Bockers and several other mutual friends, it was another occasion that was impossible to quietly tuck away into the discreet drawer of individual experience. Though Bockers was far more interested in the comedy potential of my Fagin-like appearance in evening tails with new walking stick.

I am quite taken with my new stick. It occurred to me last week that the church where I sing on Sunday mornings is around the corner from what looks like London’s finest walking stick and umbrella emporium. So I paid a visit, and came away with a very sartorially elegant black stick. For £20, it was certainly worth it to finally consign my NHS crutches to the back of my wardrobe. I thought about going for the ebony and silver topped cane, but perhaps that would be a little much. And I’m hoping that it will be a short-lived feature. Perhaps the fact that using a stick looks so much like an eccentric affectation will be a spur to the final stages of my rehabilitation. Though it’s always possible that I will fall prey to the smooth lines of a luxury walking aid. Perhaps a ‘tipple stick’, with an integral whisky flask. Or one with a sterling silver handle crafted in the shape of a duck. They’re out there. And it’s only when you’re constantly handling a stick that you start to appreciate its tactile joys. More than once I have found myself fantasising about my stick’s possibilities as a weapon in a 1st year class. Think what damage you could do with a silver duck.

Custard Slice

Wednesday afternoon, and I have managed to lock myself out of the English Department. Annoying, because I have a pile of marking to attend to in my classroom; those A’ level students who have spent 3 terms doing very little having suddenly re-acquainted themselves with a work ethic. Pleasing, because the reason that I locked myself out was because I was busy walking down Tonbridge High Street with no visible means of support. So far, I have been only managing this indoors and on even ground. I made it. And I bought a custard slice, by way of reward. If I continue to do this, my expanding waistline will provide an increasing level of difficulty to my physiotherapy, thus speeding my recovery. It is surely ‘win, win’.

Custard slices notwithstanding, my physiotherapy has, in fact, reached an exciting stage. I am now attending ‘the gym’. Sadly, this is not the mirrored muscle palace with the steam room and pool in the basement that I always associated with the term gym. There are no tanned young urban professionals toning their thighs in serried ranks. There are no big screens or classes in the latest far-eastern self-improving philosophy. No masseuses. This is the gym at St. George’s hospital. Here you will find a variety of differently coloured balls, two exercise mats, and three electronic fitness aids, all vying for the same power socket. Throw in the odd eccentric patient with suspiciously stained tracksuit bottoms and an annoying tendency to sound superior about how the equipment should be used, and you have quite a venue. Still, it is progress, and you do, quite genuinely, get to work under the watchful eye of the true professionals. Some of whom, incidentally, are tanned young urbanites.

It has been a while since I blogged. In the intervening fortnight, we have been to Birmingham, and been told that a transplant is not a likely option at the moment, both as it would not yet perform the function of a life saving operation, and as William may be ‘contra-indicated’ anyway. I suspect this may run and run. We spent a weekend at William’s hospice. William managed to part company with his gastrostomy tube whilst in Mayday Hospital. And, on a more positive note, he has learnt to tell the time. After a fashion. And I’m not convinced he has the faintest idea of what time actually signifies. His day is still regulated by CBeebies and when he is allowed off his drip to ‘run free’. Meanwhile, I have spent the weeks frantically trying to keep up with the growing panic of my exam sets, singing quite a lot, trying to be of some use to Sarah in my few spare moments, and sleeping. There is no doubt in my mind that I have deserved the odd custard slice.