Christmas update

My faith in humanity has been restored. Obviously, this is partly due to the season of good will to all men. But mostly because a box of delivered chocolates has sat outside the front door of my sodden flat for at least two weeks, and nobody has pinched it. It was under plain cover, I suppose, but even so I am impressed. Exactly twelve months ago, the locals were looting my living room.

The most regular chocolate thieves are both away at the moment anyway. Hope is with her dad, and Sarah is still incarcerated in Chelsea. And there is enough chocolate in a children’s ward at Christmas to ensure a localised obesity epidemic. In fact, on Christmas Day, there was apparently something of a surfeit of Santas too. Not three hours after a Santa with a slight limp and suspiciously high-pitched Ho Ho Ho was strong-armed into doing the rounds, than he was superseded by a member of the London Fire Brigade in a similarly unconvincing costume. I am informed by an entirely unbiased source that the earlier incarnation was far superior. Though not, I suspect, as far as some of the young mums were concerned. Photos will doubtless follow.

William was delighted with Father Christmas, especially when he finally remembered to deliver the ‘Gordon book’. And that was the favourite present. According to the back, a bargain at £2.50 in elf currency. I’m hoping that his tastes will maintain such affordable levels. No doubt Father Christmas was pretty chuffed too. William was also in sparkling form for Christmas day, which was an enormous relief. He had been pretty uncomfortable for a couple of days before, and his doctors had even threatened to remove his line on Christmas Eve, which would have meant sticking in temporary peripheral lines for at least a week. Not very festive. But now Thursday seems to be D-day, when he will have the op that will hopefully relieve the pressure in his tummy and settle things down enough to start planning for coming home. William has already started planning his return, as he is demanding that his favourite cuddly toys – his ‘friends’ – are sent home in his stead. They are seen here sharing the bed with William in his 'boys are smelly' pyjamas. For the meantime, all is on hold. William is on his drip more-or-less 24 hours a day, is windy and often sore, but is otherwise as entertaining as ever. This currently means that we are all part of an enormous Thomas role-play. William is generally Gordon, the express engine. So when he is not joining the rest of us in the great festive television slob, he hurtles around the ward at high speed, with me following and doing my very best to ensure that he doesn’t yank out his central line. I am Harvey the crane – performing the necessary role of rescuer when he falls ‘off the lines’. Everybody has a part to play. The ward sister is Trevor the tractor. William is doing his best to ensure an early release.

Incommunicado

I managed to lose my mobile phone on the late night train back to Croydon the other day. I confess that its loss was entirely due to my altered mental state. On its own, the experience of catching a late train back to Croydon is enough to alter anyone’s mental state. The doors at Victoria are kept locked until 10 minutes before the train leaves, presumably to keep Croydon’s denizens from making themselves at home – using the facilities to cook chicken nuggets, pushing dirty faced children around in decrepit buggies, putting knitted ballerinas on the toilet rolls in the Ladies. That sort of thing. So you wait in the crystallising frost, and join a steaming, stamping mass of ex-revellers, all nursing impending hangovers, and too cold to speak. The cold and nausea seem to drag you down like a sinking anchor. Finally the gates are opened by a chain-smoking porter – all non-smoking rules are suspended when the end of a Marlboro is the only source of warmth – and you shuffle to the platform, gradually trying to coax your limbs into forward movement. And it was whilst I was nestling in the corner of a carriage, quietly trying to remind myself that I was human, that I presume my phone dropped out of my pocket.

It’s quite liberating, really. Unless I turn on my computer and surf through mountains of spam and Facebook generated invitations to stick crappy applications to my profile, I am un-contactable. Glorious. Except that I was waiting for a call back about my flooding problems. I thought that I might finally have persuaded Thames Water that my flat has flooded four times in the last four years, and that they might look into doing something about it. Despite the fact that they still don’t have it ‘on their database’. In frustration, I had even tried suggesting that I wouldn’t put the phone down until I heard the clicking of keys as the data was being entered. ‘I can’t enter the data,’ responded the customer services drone. I asked who could. ‘I don’t know.’ I may have spotted the flaw in their data system. A shame that they haven’t. So I phoned Ofwat. Who will doubtless have the same conversation, but had promised to phone back. Possible progress after four years of repeated homelessness. And then I lost my phone. People become letterbombers because of this sort of thing. A pointless act of revenge. Thames Water’s internal post system would doubtless lose the bomb anyway.

Christmas is going to be spent at William’s Chelsea pad. It is kind of the NHS to provide us with such a fashionable festive address. In fact, we have managed to swing a ‘hotel room’ for Christmas evening. For ‘hotel room’, understand a room on the fourth floor with white walls, a single bed, strip lighting and chewing gum encrusted carpet tiles. I suppose it doesn’t do to encourage people to feel too comfortable. In contrast, Sarah has decorated William’s ‘bay’ so thoroughly that it has begun to resemble Santa’s grotto. And William has been wound up to such a level of festive over-excitement that I arrived the other day to find him bouncing up and down in his cot shouting ‘We wish you a merry, Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas’ at the top of his voice. Santa has been once already - William gamely tried to hide his disappointment that he hadn’t arrived with any of the presents he asked for - and there is a stubbornly tenacious coating of stray glitter on every flat surface. It is in no way ideal that William will be in hospital over Crimbles, but he will certainly enjoy himself nonetheless. His impending operation – laparotomy, ileostomy and assorted biopsies – is now due in early Jan. Christmas at home has been delayed to his potential return in mid-February. I can get the girls their presents in the January sales.

Humbug

Christmas is coming, and it is time to practise the ‘Bah Humbugs’. I am perfectly qualified for this. I have read Dickens in a professional capacity. I have the sort of trained diaphragm that can produce a really resonant ‘Bah’. And I have a sweet tooth. So I like humbugs. Plus William and Sarah are facing a Christmas in Stalag Chelsea and Westminster, and I am currently either working, sleeping on Sarah’s floor, or trundling up the A23 between Croydon and Chelsea. So Crimbles is seeming a little unattractive at the moment. And my poor junior school classes are feeling the brunt, as the froth of their youthful festivity beaches on my dry cynicism. But that’s a metaphor. And they need to learn to recognise those. So they’re stuck with me banging on for another week.

It was the boys’ Christmas dinner this week, so that was at least one nod to the festive season. Sparky put on his pinny, invited everyone to his place in rural Kent, and produced goose fat-roasted potatoes. It was enormously impressive. Then we threw ourselves at the mercy of the commuter belt – singing carols to his neighbours. And they were unimpressed. The mood was perhaps best captured by the resident of one of the mansionettes that we serenaded.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re wassailing.”

“I don’t know what that means, but here’s some money.”

Presumably hush money. It is difficult, in these circumstances, to put a name to the enemy. Ten good singers – ex-members of the National Youth Choir – must sound at least reasonably impressive when they sing carols on your doorstep. Years doing just that in London have been very successful. But the mansionette dwellers of Kent remained impassive. They presented a blank, red-brick face. “New money,” complained one wassailer. But this is a difficult insult to throw when the corollary is that old money is better, which is equally alien to a jaded socialist such as me. So I have worked on a new coinage. Cash And No Taste. CANT for short. It should be delivered with a London accent, as it sounds appropriately offensive then. And will therefore be appreciated by my current colleagues, who are both gloriously cultured, and wonderfully foul mouthed. I will miss them when I give up teaching again, and get back to singing.

Tonight was the department dinner – a moment to realise what I’ll be saying goodbye to, as we had dinner in the Athenaeum. My post-modern confusion at being found in such a setting was no better encapsulated that when I took my phone out to show a colleague that I had the number of somebody I knew only as Aphrodite on my phone, but was told off for the nature of my classical reference, as I shouldn’t have had my phone on. That Aphrodite is a composer of crossover music was information that could only cloud the issue, and is further evidence of the terribly difficult times we live in. Time, I think, to sign the Glyndebourne chorus contract and submit myself to a comforting few months of putting on fancy dress and pretending to be somebody else.

Released.

It has been a very long while since I have blogged. I have been busy, and will certainly be in trouble for blogging now, when I should be typesetting a newsletter. However, there are certainly things worth recording. Exactly one year and four months after my intimate introduction to the front end of a BMW, I have finally been discharged by the St. George's fracture clinic. For once, and despite the raised eyebrows of the radiologist when she looked at my slides, I felt a fraud as I queued up for x-ray. I have been offered the exciting possibility of a series of operations to try and close up my skin grafts, but given that each procedure would need two weeks off work, and that the most gory scar would probably prove too stubborn to treat, I have a feeling I am going to pass. So, barring an appointment with an 'orthotics' specialist who will try and sort out my limp with some exotic insoles, and my monthly meetings with the lissome beauties of the physio dept, I am released into the wild. Which is surely worth celebrating. Except, typically, I shall be doing it on my own, as my Mum and Dad are throwing themselves on the mercy of the NHS for a cataract and hip replacement operation respectively, and Sarah and William are back in William's Chelsea pad. A.k.a. Mercury ward, Chelsea and Westminster hospital. Rarely has my tax bill seemed more justified. And not to be left out, Hope and Ellie have decided to go down with the flu. So the champagne remains on ice.

William has been practising being ill. This is an early attempt:


And after some practice:



He has clearly perfected his technique. We were fairly sure he had a bit of a sniffle. Then a blood test revealed four separate bacterial infections, and a fungal growth just for good measure. He was blue-lighted to Chelsea and Westminster, and is now on three different IV drugs. William does a great line in Man flu.

I am still teaching at the City of London School. If I wanted to stay in teaching, I would certainly be applying for a job there. The pupils are certainly more savvy than Tonbridge, and, if I am to properly understand some of the more oblique references delivered in class by some of my sixth-formers, they have discovered my online presence. As I said, a great school.

I have, however, been planning my escape, and have been auditioning frantically. It has not been ideal, bellowing at 2H in the morning, and trying to sing Handel runs in the afternoon, but I do feel that I am singing well. Unfortunately, it does not appear that the key audition panels agree with me. Glyndebourne seem happy to have me back, but all of my attempts at further advancement seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Or at least I like to think that deafness is the problem. Annoyingly, the big companies refuse to give their reasons for not considering you for work. This creates an unfortunate vacuum where the rejected auditionee can either construct an enormously elaborate conspiracy theory involving masonic blacklists, or shut themselves in a darkened room bewailing their obvious complete inability to cut the mustard. The truth quite possibly lies somewhere in the middle. I like to believe that I now find myself in the unfortunate situation where I am too long in the tooth to be the next young thing, and yet have not enough experience to sell myself as an established pro. All very frustrating. So much so, that, in desperation to sing something other than 'messenger' (a role I recently sang to great acclaim in La Traviata at the Birmingham NEC), I am considering trying to put on my own production next year. I will be trying out for a significant role. I bet that bloody masonic blacklist gets in the way though. Did I mention that?

Mummies

Sarah has been in Loch Ness this weekend, running another marathon. And finished in just inside four hours. Very impressive, and we have some champagne in the fridge to celebrate. I didn’t quite get around to sponsoring her this time, which is fairly poor, but I have provided the celebratory champagne, so fingers crossed that this evens the score. Especially as Sarah’s running habit is clearly designed to highlight my own immobility, and the champagne had been bought to celebrate my own return to walking unaided. Not that I’m bitter. She’d better bloody well bring me back some whisky though. A Johnnie Walker Black Label at least. And given that I’ve also done all the family washing, tidied up and looked after all three sprogs for three nights, I’m sure I’m worth a decent bottle of Glenmorangie. Though this might be a dangerous precedent to set if I ever get touring again. So maybe I’d settle for a Loch Ness Monster key-ring.

Being a single parent has not exactly played to my strengths. I have, however, so far managed to avoid the comedy disasters of last time. One highlight (and there were many) of that episode was patching up a cut above Ellie’s eye with a bit of tape and sending her to school telling her not to make a fuss. Two hours later, and still losing blood, she was in casualty. Sadly, even this masterstroke of incompetence failed to put Sarah off entrusting me with her brood. The girls have, at least, been on pretty good form. They have spent most of the weekend playing in the street outside. Obviously, my own experiences of playing with traffic have proved less than exemplary, but they seem to be able to keep out of trouble in the cul-de-sac.

William has been less keen to give his daddy a quiet life. As proven by the attached video (This is a new experiment, and should be watched sideways!), he has been developing worrying daredevil tendencies, and, in fact, celebrated the temporary absence of mummy by pulling out his gastrostomy tube, thus requiring the intervention of his home nurse within hours of me being left in-charge. At least she had the decency to point out the encouraging sign that the washing machine was on. I like Anna. She knows the score.

Today, and on the advice of my mother, we went to the British Museum. As somebody had chosen to end it all on the East Croydon line, the journey took rather longer than planned, and by the time I was able to change William’s nappy, things were already pretty messy. Our cultural visit then lasted approximately 20 minutes. We saw some mummies. “Look William – it’s a mummy!”

“No it isn’t.”

“Look William – it’s another mummy!”

“No it isn’t – mummy’s in Scotland.”

Repeat. Several times. Then a good deal of whingeing from the girls about being hungry, and endless upset from William that he had the wrong Thomas book. I gave up, and took them to McDonald’s and the park. These are, of course, attractions that can be found nearer to home, but then we would have missed William’s comedy routine with an unsuspecting passenger on the number 11 bus. “Are you asleep lady?” Etc. So, I was glad of my mum’s advice – I did ask, after all – but should have remembered that we spent some of the most happy weekends of our own childhood playing with Lego from a bucket.

Sarah is back tomorrow. I can quite understand why she went to Inverness. Though not entirely why she seems keen to come back.

Gym

Lordy! My last post was in high summer, and it’s taken me until after the equinox to post again. Oddly, the weather doesn’t seem to be any different. On the plus-side, I’m imagining that any of my friends, family or acquaintances who had developed a habit of reading this blog will now have given up entirely, leaving me free to pontificate, talk nonsense, or libel at will.

So. What has been going on? Firstly, of course, and slavishly adhering to the initial premise of this blog, there should be leg news. And it’s still there, and unencumbered. The plastic boot is in the bin. Metaphorically, of course. It’s NHS property. So significant progress has been made. I still limp, and can’t run yet. I am missing a lot of buses. But I am now thoughtfully reminded by every medical professional I have the pleasure of meeting (professionally, of course) that I should feel lucky that I have a leg. So it is my lucky leg. Though perhaps a tattoo of a rabbit’s paw would be in bad taste. Or even a discreet horseshoe.

William has been out of hospital for some weeks. This appears to mean that his morning and evening routines are Daddy’s responsibility. Proof of this, were it required, is provided by the dawn chorus that typically wakes me up. “Change my nappy Daddy!” I think it’s great that he is home.

The flat is now empty, and 90% of my possessions are in a skip in Croydon. A poetic end. The carpet has gone, but the drying machines are still not doing their job, as there is nowhere to plug them in, and no electrician in Tooting who seems able to attend an appointment when he says he will. Nearly three months on, and I am tempted to try and dry the place out myself with kitchen paper. That advert for ‘Bounty’ makes some fairly extravagant claims.

Despite all of this progress, I’m still not back to where I was with my job. I suppose there’s quite a lot of confidence to be won back from potential employers, even if I was as sprightly around the stage as I ever was. Which, of course, I’m not. So it’s a slow business. And as mortgage rates have thoughtfully chosen this moment to rise, my only two chances of avoiding skid row have been the ongoing legal case, and the possibility of picking up teaching work. And the legal case is proving interminable. The other side seem to think I should have factored in the possibility of meeting a wannabe Stirling Moss in an aged BMW into my road-crossing calculations. So I was a relieved man when the City of London School rang and offered me work until Christmas. I had been weighing up the relative benefits of a job in Starbucks or McDonalds. It will be difficult to look the head of English at Tonbridge in the eye again though. I left him with the distinct impression that the reason I couldn’t take on the job there full-time was because I was busy establishing my international operatic career. And one of his first jobs of the new term would have been to write my reference.

At least the city is a great place to work. Over ten years ago, I did part of my PGCE there, and tiptoed in with a shaky idea of the principles of English teaching, and a determination to account for every minute of a forty minute lesson with a detailed plan. Now I waltz in with my bullshit valve jammed permanently in the open position, and an accidental knowledge of my subject. It’s a different job. And rather more enjoyable, even if it isn’t my job of choice. However, there is an integral contradiction to being an English teacher in the City of London. It is not a job that sits obviously in the same space as the unfettered capitalist. Pinstripe suits don’t have leatherette elbow-patches. So, in order to feel suitably city-boy and to please my physiotherapist at the same time, I have joined a gym. I haven’t been there yet, though. I don’t own a pair of shorts.

Food

Three weeks into what shall become known as the ‘plastic boot’ period, Hopefully not too long to go. I have got away with a couple of small roles ‘without boot’ too. There’s not a great deal of moving around in the role of 1st Armed Man. It rather defines the phrase spear-carrier. Then learning Ravel’s l’Heure Espagnole on two weeks notice and three days rehearsal. Quite terrifying, even though my role was a minor one. The attached photo shows the cast on their way to performance. You will notice the various coping strategies. Learning the score, whistling the tune, or giving in to apparent mania. I am due to sing the Count in the Barber of Seville on Sunday for a different group. This is a little more substantial - I am only offstage twice, and one of those exits is for a quick change. It shall be performed with boot. I doubt the company will be too impressed when they realise that my footwear makes my every move sound like the arrival of a cyberman. The swordplay involved may prove quite interesting too.

William is back in hospital - this time at the Chelsea and Westminster for a longish stretch. The idea is to try him on food. Sadly, this will not mean the boy tucking into a burger and chips, but rather Mummy and Daddy preparing amino-acid soup to pump overnight into one of his tubes. Hardly Gordon Ramsey. Meanwhile, William has developed his own unusual take on eating. It consists of plucking imaginary foodstuffs from the air, then either eating them, or offering them to me, so that I can pretend that the sausage, chocolate or strawberry calls to be let go, and has to be rescued from my mouth. All rather surreal, especially when he starts eating elephants, triangles and colours. So, in celebration of William’s new-found propensities for imagination, I took him out to the Tate Modern. This was an education for him, me, and for the countless gallery-goers that he chose to regale with his insights.

“What’s that, William?”
“Colouring in. An orange rectangle” (Mark Rothko)
“What’s that, William?”
“Cutting out.” (Matisse)

Surely pretty astute. It normally takes a degree in Fine Art to get to the stage of wondering what constitutes a stripe in Rothko’s Four Seasons’ murals. William was straight in there with a decent opinion, armed only the basics of crayon usage in his skills set. He’s the man.

After the gallery, we went to Borough Market. William was not as impressed with the cheese shop as I was, and insisted on clasping my hand over his nose. In fact, he has decided to frame any feelings of general malaise in terms of food. “I’ve lost my biscuit,” seems to be William-speak for “I’m generally cross, and haven’t quite figured out why.” It’s fair to say that his biscuit was missing as I sat him in front of the goats’ cheese counter of Neals Yard Dairy. Goodness only knows what he would make of the less-than fragrant mushrooms I recently discovered growing on the carpet in my flooded flat.

NHS

Hurrah for free state healthcare. My leg has been freed from its cage, William continues to be kept going, and with a smile on his face. And we have father and son splints. Mine is temporary, and needs to be worn whilst walking around. William's need to be worn overnight, and will most likely be a semi-permanent fixture. But they have tractors and helicopters on them. Which makes them far superior.

It has been a while since my last blog. All sorts of things have happened. Term ended at Tonbridge, and I once again have given up English teaching, to try and return to my old singing job. At the moment, I have approximately four confirmed dates in my diary when I have paying work. Two days after I left paying work, I went to Lille for an audition, where, outside the opera house, I turned down a particularly tenacious beggar, who told me that I was rich, and that I should f-off back to England. Bi-lingual beggar he may have been, but his grasp of the realities of my finances were about as sound as his understanding of the Entente Cordiale. And I didn’t get the part. I did come back with a decent bottle of St. Julien though. Some things are worth dipping into the overdraft for.

Things may temporarily look up on the cash front when Direct Line finally cough up the insurance payment for my last flat flooding. Although they will be unimpressed by the fact that it has flooded again. I have yet to figure out what I have lost, as it is still inches deep in foul smelling South London effluent, and I haven’t been able to get in. Odd that I spent at least a year as an undergraduate living in conditions only slightly less squalid, and never felt so fussy. However, now that my leg-metalwork has been taken off, and I am sporting my plastic open-toed orthopaedic boot, I’m guessing that squelching through raw sewage isn’t the way forward. Especially as I am still sporting open post-surgical wounds. Ideally, I need an NHS wellie. Which hasn’t been forthcoming, so I have been unable to explore. Even so, I do know that my copy of John Humphries' book about English Grammar has bought it – I saw it floating by the front door. I’m not sure I needed my recent career choice illustrated in quite such a graphic fashion.

They may not be able to provide wellies, but the NHS has come up trumps in every other regard this month. 24 hours after my frame had been removed, William had an extremely nasty turn, and I was in casualty again. He toddled over to give me a cuddle, and three minutes later, was shaking uncontrollably, going blue, and showing every symptom of ‘septic shock’. I phoned for an ambulance with my spare hand. It arrived in five minutes, and I was then astonished by just how quickly it is possible to drive from Addiscombe to Mayday hospital. Within the hour, William was sitting on a trolley regaling all who would listen with the intricacies of various Thomas stories. When you hear griping about the length of hip replacement waiting lists, it rather falls into relief when you know how impressively the health service can perform when they need to. Having said that, it did look briefly as if the nearest bed they could offer was going to be in Hampshire. And Dad’s waiting for a hip replacement.

William is home again now, and on familiar form, if a bit weary. He has mastered the phrases “I want,” and “I don’t want,” and is rather good at saying “Please!” However, he rarely, if ever, actually knows what he wants. It’s very confusing, approaching the age of three. It seems to have sparked a sort of mid-life crisis. “I want a cuddle!” “I don’t want a cuddle!” These are difficulties recognisable to all men. It was no surprise to come home yesterday to find him seeking solace in the arms of a nurse. When you’re a toddler, it seems, state healthcare can even stretch that far.

Weddings

I sang at a wedding today in Farm Street, Mayfair. My astonishment at sitting through a sermon delivered by a Jesuit priest on the subject of sex was only compounded by the realisation that the church was dedicated to the immaculate conception. You have to wonder about the church’s authority in some matters.

It has been a good week for weddings. Not only was I told that the Church of the Immaculate Conception had been the venue for four couples deciding to choose such an inappropriate venue to take the plunge this weekend alone, but my brother was married last Saturday. Whilst the family nature of this wedding was rather compromised by the fact that it proved impossible for the family to come with me, it was still a very fine weekend. It was, however, just south of Edinburgh. And I was singing a Magic Flute in Bristol the evening before. And teaching in Kent that morning. Perhaps a little ambitious. When I caught myself in the mirror on Friday evening, after my marathon trip up and down the M4, even I was surprised by the nature of the black rings around my eyes. Until I noticed the triangular eyebrows, and realised that I’d forgotten to remove my stage make-up. No wonder that chap in Reading services had looked at me so oddly. I’d thought it was just because of my limp.

The car was ditched on Saturday morning in favour of a flight to Edinburgh from London City Airport. A revelation. There was not a single queue, and not even the remotest suggestion that the flight wouldn’t take off at its allotted time. Extraordinary. My only disappointment was that Security failed to even raise an eyebrow as I walked through the metal detector. It has been a standing joke since my accident that my leg would set off every possible alarm at airport security. And when I finally tried it out, not a peep. I could have shoved a sawn-off up my trouser leg and got away with it. Doubtless they were aiming not to cause offence. I’m not sure I would have taken any, in the circumstances. The policemen with sub-machine guns do tend to remind the modern airport traveller of current priorities.

The wedding itself went in the usual haze of celebratory boozing. Everyone had a thoroughly decent time, and I left on Sunday morning with a new set of relatives in my phone book. Relatives with fiery red hair, a farm in the lowlands and a collective understanding of the value of a decent night on the tiles. The blood-line is secure.

I didn’t escape the wedding entirely unscathed. I did get a little over-enthusiastic during the ceilidh, and had to eventually retire hurt. Fortunately, the pain settled down after a couple of days, and has left me with nothing more long-lasting than yet another pin-track infection. I attempted to deal with this as discreetly as possible by visiting the Tooting ‘walk-in centre’ and asking for the relevant anti-biotics. Sadly, however, I was referred to the A&E dept, and spent three hours being x-rayed and generally administered to, before finally leaving the hospital with exactly the same box of anti-biotics that I had earlier asked for. On the plus-side, the ‘Orthopods’ (as they are affectionately called by their colleagues) did take the opportunity to realise that I seemed to have dropped off their radar, and so arranged a proper appointment for next week. It clashes horribly with some invigilation, but I plan to move heaven and earth to attend, as I have high hopes that this might be the appointment that marks the loss of my unwelcome appendage. In fact, I’m so eager that I may forgo breakfast just in case they can slot me in there and then. Here’s hoping. And praying. Perhaps the Jesuit fathers can help me out. And give me some advice on my sex life while they’re at it.

Exams

The half term is over, and Tonbridge’s every covered space is full of regimented desks. Exam season proper is here. When I first started teaching, this induced quite a thrill of vicarious nervousness. It had not been that long since my own Finals and A’ levels. The sad truth is that it had also not been that long since my O’ levels. And now that GCSEs are being are being sat by a second generation, it is fair to say that my own exam experience feels like it happened quite a while ago. Now, in fact, the overwhelming thought when the exam tables go out, is how boring invigilation will be.

Invigilation. A bizarre word. It sounds like a medical process. To undergo invigilation should involve something being painfully removed. One’s vigils, perhaps. Whatever they may be. It would certainly be a process resulting in the unfortunate victim being left only able to silently walk up and down, automaton-like, in straight lines.

There are ways to make the time pass more quickly. It is always a joy when candidates – for that’s what your pupils have become – start asking for more paper. The race to provide extra sheets is a glorious form of minority sport. The race participant has to not only arrive at the relevant desk first, but he also has to spot the hand going up, and walk in a dignified fashion, as quickly as possible, in order to beat his fellow dignified competitors to the wire. Dead heats are quite common, at which point seniority comes into play. Undignified walking or any hint of breaking into a bustle result in obvious disqualification. However, at Tonbridge, I have so far been unable to persuade anybody to take part in my favourite invigilation pastime – exam battleships. This really has to be reserved for schools where one’s feet are well and truly under the classroom desk. The game is familiar. Certain lines of desks are designated as a competitor’s frigates, destroyers and battleship. Each invigilator then takes turns to take shots. These are achieved by standing behind a desk and giving the pre-arranged signal. Perhaps a cough. The game can get quite exciting. Lines of candidates can potentially get quite nervous about the extra attention they are receiving. A sunken battleship can be celebrated by a quite fabulously inappropriate display of triumph. A short exam can create almost unbearable tension in a difficult game. All so much better than simply trotting around with a handful of sweaty treasury tags.

Sadly, Tonbridge’s exam season is inducing a different variety of nervousness this summer. My sense of the growing inevitability of a summer of unemployment. Glyndebourne cannot now employ me until March at the earliest, and even my few performances of Barber of Seville are looking ever less likely as I continue to sport my unorthodox leg-wear. The Count’s costume, after all, consists of tights and breeches. One cyberman in search of temporary gainful employment. Isn’t that why we took those exams in the first place?

Tescos. Dame Shirley Porter. And warthogs.

It’s near the end of half-term, and William has had a couple of ‘Daddy days’. Nothing other than Daddy will do, and if I don’t respond to “Daddy!” he will first try “Daddy?” then “DADDY!” and if all else fails, “Paul.” This level of attention is certainly flattering, but fairly exhausting too. And it has been an exciting couple of days for William, so the boy is now so tired and emotional that he is quite literally walking into walls.

Yesterday featured a trip to the zoo, courtesy of William’s hospice. The early signs weren’t positive. We managed to spot a couple of the less reticent animals, William would acknowledge their existence, say bye-bye, and insist on moving on.

“Look, it’s a warthog William!”
“It’s a warthog! Bye-bye warthog!”

Fortunately however, the zoo had a clear idea of where best to really spend their resources, and had laid on some entertainers with similar employment prospects to mine, wearing a variety of unconvincing costumes. These poor unfortunates made William’s day. He said hello to a tiger, a penguin, a monkey, a rabbit and a bumble bee. He insisted on giving them all a cuddle. He is still talking about it. And then we went on a small steam train. So William’s day was complete. Who needs animals at a zoo?

My day had started at a meeting with my lawyer. I was singing at a funeral at lunchtime, so felt quite the city boy, limping through town in a suit, albeit one that was crammed over my frame and showing six inches of ankle impaled with a plastic coated bolt. Apparently, the driver who thoughtfully introduced me to the bumper of his BMW is insured by Tesco, and they are not playing ball. Despite his admission to a magistrate that he had been driving without due care and attention, in the world of Tesco, this does not mean that Mr. BMW driver is at fault. I guess it should be no surprise to me that Tesco would inhabit a world of parallel logic, where normal reasonable thought is warped by considerations of pure, unfettered capitalism. After all, this is a company whose raison d’etre is to become the same company that provides for our every consumer need whilst being the company indelibly linked with one Dame Shirley Porter, gerrymanderer extraordinaire. Was this the heiress to the Tesco fortune? The same Tesco that posted recent annual profits of over £2bn? The same Shirley Porter that pleaded poverty when fined by the courts? Anyway, it is good to see the true face of Tesco behind the mask of friendly high-street grocer. That they are keeping close to the principles of their founding family. And that they can be trusted to look after the pennies in order to keep down the price of their milk. Ridiculous, I know, to think of my own litigation in such a context. Oddly, though, any old-fashioned scruples I ever had about playing my part in a rising tide of personal accident litigation have been thrown to the winds. To be blown about in some dusty corner somewhere with a few Tesco’s carrier bags.

At least William, with his nil-by-mouth existence, will not be beholden to the great supermarket giants. He has been hard work today though, still calling for Daddy an hour after being put to bed. Ideally I should now relax with a beer. I’m sure they’ve got some decent offers on multipacks at that well-known blue-fronted grocer’s store down the road.

A load of kidneys

So, Endemol were making the Dutch kidney transplant programme as a ‘hoax’. Does this make them civic minded rather than a cynically exploitative media company prepared to do anything for viewing figures? I know where I stand.

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.

Running

A week of relative domestic calm after Sarah ran the marathon last weekend. Not only did she manage it in 4.46.59 – best rounded down, I am assured – but she was less stiff the next day than I was, having had to spend all day trotting around London with the kids. Thoroughly impressive/annoying all round. And, despite having spent two hours on Tower Bridge cheering on sweaty runners dressed as bakewell tarts, I am still in the bad books over the whole business, as we managed to miss seeing Sarah, and technical difficulties meant that I didn’t manage to get around to sponsoring her myself. Despite the lack of Brownie points though, I am still very impressed and proud of her. Even though I am still sure she started her running hobby weeks after my accident just to rub things in.

William has been doing some running too. We went for a picnic yesterday in the salubrious setting of South Norwood Country Park. I’m not sure if a patch of grass between Tesco’s, a pair of tram tracks and an athletics stadium truly qualifies as the country, but by South London standards, it does a good job. While we were doing our best to tuck into our cream buns, William was determined to fully explore the mountaineering possibilities afforded by the hillock that passes for South Norwood’s highest point. He was a little confused by the fact that he hasn’t figured out the difference between up and down, but that didn’t stop him toddling as far up the slope as he could get, then hurtling down, entirely out of control, and playing Russian roulette with the smashed glass that littered the path. He was having a wonderful time. “William’s having fun!” he told us. Unfortunately, Daddy had to follow, hobbling desperately down the hill, looking for all the world like a confused entrant to a three legged race. The William/Daddy combination must cut a fairly impressive dash these days.

This is going to be an important week for William. It throws my own growing relationship with the orthopaedics community of South London into some sort of relief when you are invited to Birmingham children’s hospital to discuss the possibilities of an intestinal transplant for your son. These are extremely rare, and extremely dangerous operations. I’m not sure it will be right for the boy, as we are yet to be told why it might work. I think a degree of scepticism is essential though, as there is nothing more dangerous than imagining that a huge operation is the way forward, simply because it is something that can be done. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons for this Friday’s meeting. It is going to be a very nervous trip down the M40.

At least we should be able to make the trip with me at the steering wheel. My hand is getting better very quickly, I am pleased to report, and two Velcro straps on my fingers are now the only visible sign of the mishap. It looks entirely likely that I will have had the time to break my hand and make a complete recovery in the space between two routine appointments for my leg. It tells you something when you attend a ‘hand therapy’ session, and find your therapists crowded around an x-ray of your leg, making impressed noises. There are still a few things that I can’t do with my hand, though. As one of these things is the washing up, I am actually quite disposed to enjoying this injury. However, as I had to point out to a trainee therapist who was busy ticking the relevant boxes on a form describing my hand injury, just because I meant to hit the furniture, does not mean that it was an example of ‘deliberate self-harm’. Unless, of course, the DSH box stood for ‘deliberate sofa harm’. I’m guessing it didn’t.

Jihad

Back to school, and, yesterday, back to Glyndebourne for a meeting with the boss. It was a very odd experience travelling back to Lewes. The last time I was there, I left work and was a bloody mess in A&E a few hours later. That was in July 2006. Apparently, amongst my very first incoherent ramblings was an exhortation that nobody should tell Glyndebourne, as I felt I’d be making it back shortly. It now appears as if, audition notwithstanding, I will finally make it back in March/April 2008. Almost two years after the accident. I was quietly hoping that I might make it onto this autumn’s tour, but I must admit that, if I was my own boss, I wouldn’t have hired me for September. So I can’t really get cross about it. The tour is going to be a tough one, and everybody else will have learnt the operas this summer. And the biggest production – Macbeth, in case we needed any more bad luck - is in kilts. I'm not sure the delicate opera-going public is quite ready for the public exposure of my right calf. So, come July, I will potentially be without a job until March, and trying to persuade a new set of people that I am a fine employment prospect whilst hobbling in to an audition room looking like an extra from Casualty. You have to be tenacious to be an opera singer. But things are starting to get ridiculous. Until somebody writes ‘Emergency ward 10 – the opera’, I am screwed.

In the meantime, it’s back to teaching. My pupils were universally thoughtful enough to find my broken hand hilariously amusing. I can’t say that I blame them. My early attempts at marking homework might just have well have been in runic for all their legibility. I am having to nominate board scribes. And, after my own makeshift coat-hanger splint, St. George’s finally provided me with a plastic, scoop shaped affair that makes my classroom rhetorical gestures look as though I’m cleaning crumbs off a table.

Things that become impossibly difficult whilst wearing a hand splint:

1. Shaking hands with people. The question about the left handed shake then arises. Does it have Masonic connections? Along with my recent enforced predilection for one-legged pairs of trousers, is there a theme here?

2. Changing William’s pyjamas at 2 o’clock in the morning. All those poppers. Ridiculous.

3. Using two crutches. Apparently, according to my physio, a good thing in the long run, but leading to a great deal of not insignificant ankle pain.

4. Driving. So I have to walk a mile from the station to work. See no. 3.

5. Chopping food. I got as far as mixing the curry paste the other day, before realising that chopping onions was going to be an insurmountable obstacle. We had some cold beef in the fridge. I resorted to tearing at it like a Neanderthal. Satisfying, but ultimately quite uncivilized. As for using a knife and fork in the staff dining room, I have been in real trouble. Very difficult to hold a serious conversation whilst gnawing a complete chicken breast on the end of a fork.

6. Using button flies. Which adorn the only pair of decent trousers I have that fit over my leg. Insult. Injury. And quite serious indignity in public toilets.

All of which serves me right for breaking my hand in the first place, I suppose. Though I am now suspecting a cause for all this bad luck. In an idle moment, I googled ‘blegspot’. And found this site in Arabic amongst only five or six results. Is it Jihad? Am I the domestic front of some middle-eastern terror campaign? Was the sofa tampered with? Or do I need to rediscover a sense of persective? Now that I've broken my hand, maybe I should change my blog's name. To Blandspot? Maybe not.

Guess What?!

I think this picture captures the essential spirit of Easter. Certainly my weekend was dominated by the cocoa bean, not least because I also received my birthday present from Sarah – membership of the ‘chocolate tasting club’. Very dangerous. One of those presents, I suspect, that will mean more expenditure from me, as I will struggle to let the monthly red cross parcels run out after six months.

The children chose to celebrate Easter in their own ways. Once they had finished arranging their mountains of chocolate into different bowls, the girls chose to commemorate the season with an ‘Easter Show’. Very engaging and edifying. Especially at the moment when the inevitable artistic differences arose, and Hope broke off mid prayer to blaspheme heartily. William was obviously unimpressed both by the chocolate-fest and the more spiritual aspects of the season. Chocolate eggs were replaced by the Henry engine that he’d been hanging out for, and his dodgy eyesight led to him mistaking the crown of thorns for a spider, and regaling the congregation of St. Mildred’s with a rendition of Incey Wincey spider at a critical moment in the Good Friday service. He rarely lets me down.

By Easter Monday morning, a combination of cocoa overload, all round frustration with William’s fiddly new pump and general malaise led me to a moment of fragile temper. Moments after I had brought my fist down on the sofa arm, I knew I was in trouble. The picture tells the sorry tale. I have broken my hand. Bugger.

We managed to spend the day taking the kids around an urban farm, but by the evening, with my hand twice its normal size, I thought a trip to A&E would be wise. After returning from the x-ray booth where I now hold a loyalty card and where I was due the next day for a routine x-ray of my leg, the doctor, barely able to disguise her mirth, showed me the good news, and told me that it would need pinning.

In fact, two days later, the ‘hand clinic’ has decided that a plaster cast splint should do the trick, so my bionic bits shouldn’t have to extend above the waist. But I am beginning to look like the willing volunteer in a first aid class. An eye-patch and comedy head bandage would pretty much complete the picture. And I will need a better story than the truth when I face my pupils next week. My medical notes describe the injury as following a ‘karate chop style blow’. Whilst I am not sure that being described as Jackie Chan will improve my chances of being taken seriously in clinic, I can see the benefits of this reputation in the classroom. Perhaps this is the solution. The only other face saving solution has been to blame the inferior quality of the sofa. But perhaps I should never have thought of trusting the upholstery of something described in the IKEA catalogue as an ‘EKESKOG’. I should have heard and recognised the overtones of a Nordic avenger.

There is a website called ‘mybrokenleg.com’. There is not one called ‘mybrokenhand.com’. There is a reason for this. It is very difficult to type using only your left hand. Perhaps it’s out there, but spelled ‘shtswsfdbfb.vom’. Or the equivalent. Either way, my blogs may be a little shorter for a while.

Sunshine

Is somebody trying to tell me something? Here I am, gradually trying to re-establish myself as a singer, and the concerts I’ve been hired for so far include one set of evening vespers and three performances of Verdi’s Requiem. What is all this doom and gloom hinting at? The death of my career perhaps? Or maybe, given the way I feel after twenty minutes on the rowing machine I’ve borrowed from Bockers, my impending actual demise. Meanwhile, and perhaps just to rub it in, I’ve been written to by Harrow school, asking if I’m interested in working for them as an English teacher. My life is beginning to resemble ‘Mr. Chips, the tour’.

In the interests of retaining focus, I finally managed to arrange a singing lesson last week. The first since the accident. Not, perhaps, surprising, seeing as the route there includes three separate tube lines, and rather too much escalator and stair involvement for my liking. But I got there, and it was a glorious hour. Not only was I gratified to learn that breaking my face hasn’t, at least, rendered me utterly voiceless, but I was hugely glad just to feel my old sense of purpose flooding back. David, my teacher, was phlegmatic about my chances of making an early triumphant re-entry into the world of opera, but seemed encouraged that my first booked engagement is as an armed man in The Magic Flute. I’m guessing my robotic leg will only add to the effect.

In the meantime, William has returned home from his latest hospital stay. He is delighted to be back, mainly because he has been reunited with his box of ‘engines’. He has started to notice the few gaps in his Thomas collection too, and is dropping the sort of subtle hints that only two-and-a-half year olds can get away with. ‘Where’s Henry?’ ‘Henry on the table.’ That sort of thing. Unbeknownst to him, I’ve been carrying Henry in my bag for the last week, and am now less than convinced that I should give it to him and seem to be acceding to his demands. I’ll probably give in though. And risk producing a horribly spoilt toddler. Damn my weakness.

On a day like today, however, it is difficult to reject feelings of the milk of human kindness. I am out in the garden in Tooting, enjoying the sunshine that is flooding everybody else’s gardens, but not mine, as it is in perpetual shade. Still, I have smeared my skin grafts in factor 50, put on a pair of shorts, and intend to go out on the streets soon, and scare the locals. And, as I write, a small patch of sunshine has illuminated the corner of the moss-ridden, cat litter tray that I like to call my garden. So I’m off to go and stand in it.

Old

I had blog-off in something of a hurry last time, as William was on the rampage. As it is now the 29th March, there is an evident implication that he has been on the rampage for seven days. This may well be true, but there has been time for some other things as well. Like my birthday. When I watched docilely by, whilst Hope and Ellie rummaged through my cards, and professed how delighted I should be with the fudge that I knew would disappear within hours unless I put it under lock and key. I thought back to the Walnut Whips I had bought for dad back in the latter years of the last millennium. There had to be a reason why he declared his desire for such an apparently revolting confection. I think I’ve now worked it out. And the girls haven’t found the chocolate mango pieces that Lindsey bought me. Though I may have made a tactical error putting them in Sarah’s bedroom.

Still, I managed to smuggle Sarah out for the evening, as Margaret, William’s nurse, stepped into the breach, and took on babysitting duties all night. Sadly, the Milne family’s babysitting needs are not able to be met by a pubescent girl acting out her maternal fantasies by sounding a little stern, phoning her boyfriend for three hours and collecting a tenner at the end of the night. The ability to access a Hickman line comes as a pre-requisite, as does the ability to spot any potentially life-threatening infection. So William justified Margaret’s qualifications by spiking a temperature the next morning. Not the news you are looking for as you blearily contemplate dawn’s rays through a Guinness hangover. He is not, thankfully, very ill, but William is now back in hospital. A current estimate of the time he has spent at home in 2007 is running at two and a half weeks.

This all means that I am in charge of the family home. Highlights of the last time this happened included my applying an Elastoplast to a cut head that the school later decided required a trip to casualty, and Ellie relieving herself in the street. “Then I realised I need a poo.” I chose the path of least resistance last night, and took the girls for a takeaway pizza. Experience has shown that this can also solve the inevitable morning ‘what can we have in our sandwiches?’ crisis. Surrogate Fatherhood has come naturally to me. But doesn’t extend far enough for me to have dealt favourably with Hope’s expectation that I would iron her school shirt this morning. Frankly, as I needed a machete to cut my way into their bedroom this morning, and as I know that the offending article was somewhere on the floor, she was lucky it hadn’t turned into compost.

So, a moment of repose this morning. The girls are at school. Sarah is with William at the Mayday, and I am waiting for a delivery of some newsletters for the charity that Sarah runs. There is a slight frisson even to this, though, as I typeset them, and have only a little idea of what I am doing with a DTP program. And people are rather more willing to forgive you mistakes when you are editing school magazines. You can blame spelling mistakes on the schoolboys.

Dynamised!

This is the bolt that was unscrewed from my frame last week. Its removal means that I have been 'dynamised'. I am doing my best to live up to this description, and am feeling as dynamic as possible. Admittedly, my current sensations of dynamism are probably more to do with the fact that it is the end of term at Tonbridge. However, it is now true that there is a literal 'spring in my step'. Groan.

Encouragingly, my surgeon now feels that he can be pretty honest with me. I'm guessing my x-rays must be looking like a familiar family photo album by now. Rather less encouragingly, his more relaxed, 'chummy' style manifested itself by his looming over my leg at my last appointment, whilst vouchsafing the opinion that my x-rays were such a mess that he couldn't really tell what was going on, and that it was anyone's guess as to whether he should take the bolt out. When we agreed that it would probably be a safe bet, it was left to his registrar to do the mechanics. A nurse brought in a selection of toolboxes, and the doctor started rummaging through them looking for all the world as if he was going to do some plumbing. Why an orthopaedic outpatient's department should have a 1 1/2" spanner is a mystery that I was unable to solve. I suspected it was a form of emergency anasthaetic.

In my new, dynamised self, I was able to bounce along to a photographer last Thursday to have my injuries photographed for my solicitor. It must be quite a strange reversal of roles for a photographer to make part of his living through ensuring that his models look as bad as possible. I was entirely confused as to whether I should be smiling for the camera, or looking as miserable as I could. And the lighting had to be just right to properly capture my facial scarring at its most grusome. The leg was less of a problem. Thoughtfully, the photographer remarked that it was the worst injury he'd yet had to photograph. Which, together with the St. George's Registrar's opinion that my x-rays are amongst the worst he has ever seen, has made me feel quite special. I admit to having felt even more special when I had to take my trousers off in a photographic studio though. I know some might consider it sordid, but early on in a modelling career, you have to take whatever's available.

More to follow. William's on the rampage.

Blogrot

It has been a little while since I last posted, and, whilst the creative juices have been flowing steadily - in fact more than usual, as I have invested in a new coffee machine - I have been frustrated in my postings by 'technical difficulties'. In fact, this will effectively be a blind posting, as I can see to write it, but the server at Tonbridge School does not see fit to let me view the finished article. There could be several intriguing reasons for this. Perhaps the many leggy photos adorning this site, and the resulting high number of flesh coloured pixels have fallen foul of the school's porn sensor. Or Censor? Maybe Blogger.com is a banned site in case the boys take it into their heads to become libellous. Though this would require them to spend time writing - not a thing I have found them all inclined to do. Or, and this is particularly intriguing, it could be something to do with the two comments on my last post that I know are there, but the school server is not allowing me to read. Have my pupils discovered the blog, and started writing revenge-fuelled home truths? (It was parents' evening a week ago.) Is it more spam, encouraging a discretion-free, dictatorial filter to kick in? Or is somebody getting saucy?

If it wasn't enough that the Tonbridge server is being difficult, the internet in Tooting has become a distant dream. I foolishly thought that I should try Orange as a provider, as I already pay them a huge amount of money, and it seemed a good deal. Three weeks later, I have no internet access, I've spent approximately six hours on the phone to various robotic voices, and I'm seriously considering becoming the next mail-bomber. When I finally decided, a week ago, to cancel the order, as it was plain that it wouldn't work, a nice man at Orange told me it was my fault as I should have checked to see if their broadband worked with a Mac. Since then, my landline has broken down completely, and BT have left me a note saying that I should contact them to re-arrange an engineer to fix the problem. But left no contact number. Perhaps they have seen the light, and don't have a phone? At least then they would save themselves the indignity of being seen standing in the middle of a car-park raving insanely at a tape-recorder telling them for twenty minutes that 'your call is important to us'. If it was important, why not employ a person to answer the phone?

William is still in hospital. They are tinkering with the recipe of his drip feed, which is a long and tedious process. He has managed about two weeks at home in 2007. In the meantime, we received an update latter from his surgeon, suggesting that he should be assessed at Birmingham Children's Hospital, where they are leading experts in all things gut-related. More alarmingly, he detailed the various different ways in which he feared that William might meet his premature 'demise'. Once again, the medical lexicon came to the fore. House sparrows are suffering a gradual demise. The wearing of trilbies has suffered a demise. The use of dried egg in cookery. Suffering a demise. But William? I suppose there's no way of putting it nicely. 'These are the ways in which your son may eventually snuff it?'

Whilst there is no immediate prospect of getting any sort of recompense from the Maker for his error in William's assembly, or from Orange for their error in thinking they could turn the future anything other than a shade of rage-induced red, I do hope now to get some satisfaction from the chap who turned my leg into a Meccano set. I saw my lawyer last week, and he struck me as a man who knew his business, and would make the process as painless and fair as possible. And he had read the blog, thus making him a very lovely chap. The flip side of this, of course, is that in due time, the other side may do some web-based research too. And they have bought time, by denying fault, despite the fact that the driver pleaded guilty to driving without due care. Could they counter-sue for libel if I called their client a BMW-wielding, limb-destroying, and now apparently schizophrenic delusional? Let's see.

There are no photos in this blog, not least as I think my camera was one of the victims of the break-in at New Year. I am now at the point of being able to claim for what I know has been lost. As the burglars left only my classical CDs behind, and pinched every piece of recorded music that was either Jazz or involved a drum kit, it seems that the saddest thing that they stole was what was left of my 'cool'. Is it possible to claim for this? How much would it be worth? Could I ever prove that I had it in the first place? And if there are any phantom blog commentators out there, leaving mysterious messages that I can't read - that's a rhetorical question.

Awfulfix

This is an ad for the cyberleg that I'm currently sporting. I'm not quite sure about the message it's trying to portray. Orthofix - for patients who break their legs fashionably? Buy our products - you'll look like a trend-setting medical professional? Ski more - you'll raise our share price? It was the nurse specialist at St. George's who told me about the coinage 'awfulfix'. As she also referred to the hospital where William gets most of his care as 'Maydie', I'm putting this down to her love of wordplay rather than any reflection on the surgical decision to screw one of the things to my tibia.

The main feature of this space-age piece of robotics is a release-able bolt that turns the whole device into a spring. This should, of course, turn me into an athlete; my cyber-calf a technologically enhanced coil of potential energy. Sadly, when I saw my surgeon yesterday, he decided not to release it, as my bone has been shifting a little again and needs no furher encouragement. So I had to hobble out in my usual state. At least I had my stitches removed - a saga that involved two nurses, a registrar and an artery clamp. And took about twenty minutes. It seems that the sewing was a little unconventional. Short of putting his feet against the wall to gain enough purchase, I'm not quite sure how the reg could have pulled any harder, and when the thread finally came out, I half expected to find a salmon on the end of it.

The plus-side of all of this is that my leg is still fully supported by the device, so I still have the strength to pull an emergency stop, and thus drive legally. Which is a joy. Even though I have spent most of my time behind the wheel stuck in traffic jams either on the way to Tonbridge School or the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. But it's worth it, if only to see the look on people's faces as I get out of the car and reach for my crutches. As my friend Alice pointed out, I couldn't look any more like a benefit scrounger turning up to sign on if I tried. All of which matters very little, compared to the unalloyed pleasure of being able to get around wherever I want to. And if I am delighted about my window of driving opportunity, that is nothing compared to the joy shown by William as we finally loaded him up into his car seat last night to break him out of hospital after his month-long stay. He was squirming so delightedly that he lost complete control of every limb. So it's handy I don't get quite that happy when I get behind the wheel.

The other driving related piece of news is that Mr. BMW driving, highway code ignoring leg-wrecker has pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention. And received 9 points and a £300 fine. I'm not quite sure what the fine is supposed to prove. In driving offence terms, it's probably pretty harsh, especially given his guilty plea. In any other, more moral light, a £300 fine is a bad joke. Perhaps some words of explanation were offered by the magistrate. Given that I was not invited to the hearing, they could only ever have been irrelevant. However, the positive news is that the various different witness reports clearly seem to have pointed the finger of blame. If I ever get to read them, I might even be able to piece things together myself.

Having sprung William from the Chelsea and Westminster, I was quite lucky to be free of the place myself. Another pin-infection has sprung up, and started to make itself felt, as is usual, at the weekend. With my GP's surgery shut, I thought a quick trip down to A&E at Chelsea whilst William and Sarah were upstairs would leave me furnished with the necessary bottle of antibiotics. Six hours later, with a wristband and hospital number, and after an x-ray, countless blood tests and two lots of intravenous drugs, I finally emerged. It was only due to the now familiar nonchalance of an orthopaedic registrar that I managed to escape a ward admission. Lesson learned - next time my pins look a little worrisome, wait until Monday to sort it out.

So, two more days of half term, and a semblance of normality has returned. William is back, and spending the afternoons rifling through his Thomas DVDs. Sarah's parents, who had once again marvellously stepped into the breach, are off home, and leaving us with a bed to sleep in. And the girls are glad to see their Mum back, and to re-assert their authority. As I walked them to school this morning, the first whiffs of resurging oestrogen could be caught on the morning breeze. How wonderful that the car that sits on the driveway now presents a real opportunity.

Back to School

So, after my ten day convalescence (perhaps a little OTT), I'm back at school, and contemplating how I'm going to achieve the commute tomorrow if the threatened six inches of snow arrive. There is every possibility that I will fail to even manage the steps outside my flat, as they have a nasty habit of icing up under those conditions. I suppose it's either tackling them with some SAXA and a hairdryer tomorrow morning, or stocking up with tins and bottled water tonight. Oddly, one of these options seems noticeably more appealing.

There has been some good news this week. Firstly, Queenie has posted a real comment on the blog, so I feel loved. (Or is it stalked, Queenie?!) Secondly, Mr. BMW has acknowledged his shaky grasp of the highway code in front of a magistrate, and has pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention. This is good news, as I feel somewhat less silly admitting that I was knocked over, whilst remembering nothing about the circumstances. Apparently, there are plenty of witness statements to suggest that the circumstances included a BMW driver driving like a prat. And now he has agreed. In so many words.

The less positive news is that William is still in hospital. It seems that this infection is really difficult to shift, and the poor boy is now so generally under the weather, that he is picking up new ones as well. All of this means that he is unable to have a new central line fitted, which means that he goes without nutrition, which means that he is less able to fight infection... You see the difficulty. However, and not just because I know that Hope now occasionally reads this blog (I suppose meaning the language can never extend beyond 'PG' any more), I should say that this is not a disaster. These are just infections, and William will get there. It's just quite unpleasant visiting your son and being called upon to hold him down whilst yet another doctor assaults him with a sharp instrument. It's all too easy to consider that modern medicine is still harking back to the mediaeval when your child is having his blood let every day, and your own leg seems to have been fixed by a blacksmith. I tried to make both William and me feel better by buying him a LEGO Percy. An expensive business, guilt.

I am writing this blog whilst at my school desk. I have discovered another use for the blog. To put off writing reports. If there was no other reason to remember why I left teaching in the first place, writing reports would be enough on its own. It is the art of writing a set of 25 paragraphs per class, 23 of which are elaborate ways of saying nothing in different ways, whilst one will praise a child who is motivated anyway, and one will bollock a child who won't care. (There goes the PG rating.) How I've missed it. If only I'd kept the reports I've written for the children of royalty, the rich and the famous. I could have flogged them to the tabloids, paid my tax bill, sold my soul, and all in the certain knowledge that I didn't really have anything earth shattering to say about them either. I probably checked the spelling a little more carefully though. Back to the grundstone.

Spam. Time to end it all.

Finally somebody has left a comment on my blog, and it's SPAM! Not content with leaving an average of 60 emails a day trying to sell me cheap shares and performance enhancers for my nether regions, the bastards have started spamming my blog. Well, Mr/s Happysky1, or whatever you choose to call yourself, you have not made me happy, and I would be delighted if you shoved whatever it is you're trying to sell where the light of the sky is never seen. Except, of course, you're not reading this because you are some sort of 'webbot' created by a social misfit in California who has taken a few minutes away from attending to his rampaging acne to ruin the rest of our lives by wasting our time with e-bollocks. So I guess I'm ranting to myself, again.

Meanwhile, William has seen the way that the world is going, and has decided to take the necessary steps. I can't say I blame him. I hobbled in to see him and Sarah at the Chelsea and Westminster this afternoon, and there seems no immediate release date in sight. He had an interesting test today involving watching a flashing light whilst wearing a variety of electrodes and a net bag on his head. No wonder the poor boy seems to have a diminishing grasp of things, and is clinging to dear life to the unchanging certainties of his Thomas DVDs.

On the way back, I changed bus at Clapham Junction, and decided to wander up and have a look at the fateful junction where I met my BMW shaped nemesis. Perhaps I was hoping that I would have some flash of memory to replace the gaping void that still remains. Nothing. None of those Hollywood style flashbacks. Just a vague sense that I looked a bit silly loitering by the crossing without any clear intention of actually crossing the road. Ironically, it did cause passing motorists to slow down a little. I hope I get to see the 3rd party witness statements at some point, because it really is the oddest sensation, having such a life-changing experience without remembering a single thing about it. Although, of course, at my 18th, 21st and 30th birthdays, I did attempt to achieve the same effect with alcohol. Not to mention my wedding. And every Christmas.