FREE HOLIDAY ANYONE?

I wrote something for the website HaveaLovelyTime.com

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22) Is state schooling best?

A good friend of mine has just installed her seven-year-old daughter in private school.  Each to his or her own, of course.  But.... we could have shared both the school run and several more coffees/glasses of wine if she'd stayed put and hadn't been too busy sewing name tapes on to expensive blazers and skirts to come out and play.  Aside from the fact that I'd rather spend our hard-earned cash on family holidays, nice shoes and handbags, I also believe that we should keep our children in state schools so that we can keep the pressure on local authorities to keep these schools good. However, I understand her reasons for doing what she's done - small class sizes, continuity of education as they're a military family who move a lot etc. I just worry about the pressure she's putting on her daughter as well as the social and financial burden it's putting on her family.

We're lucky. Where we live, the primary schools are mostly good. It gets trickier at secondary school because many of them are in a no-man's-land and are not a natural feeder to any of the 'big' schools. Many of those comprehensives are MASSIVE: 1200 pupils in each. One of the secondary schools in the nearest town has no sixth form, which is sometimes a clincher for people who want the continuity of their child studying for A'Levels there too. Another is a sports' specialist school. As such, school hours are a bit different, and if your child isn't into sport, that's a no-go. The other secondary school has a large percentage of pupils for whom English isn't their first language - another feature that makes some parents pause for thought, no matter how cosmopolitan they claim to be. Then there's the school that is on special measures, so a neighbouring head teacher has just been asking to take it on, as well as his own, in order to improve its performance. Does that mean that the new school he's working at is the place to opt for because it will have just pulled up its socks? We're in the catchment for his old school, but will he still have his eye on the ball there?

Fortunately, I don't have to think about this for my elder son, until next October. But it's such an important decision - something that people move house for - that we're thinking about it early. Fortunately too, we simply can't afford the private school option, otherwise we'd be even more confused. But even if we could afford it, reasonable schools are available locally and if we can get it for free I think we should. Not just because we're tight-fisted either. Having been to a small, minor private school myself (and maybe this is the real reason....) I found the big leap to university unnerving. I'd rather my children were used to being small fish in a big pond so that they are more confident and able to cope in what is a big and competitive world.

My main worry is bullying. You'll get bullies anywhere - but I've yet to come across anywhere that deals with it effectively. For a start, if someone's bullying you, the advice is to tell someone. Inevitably, the bully finds out that you've dobbed them in. So how are they going to react? They're going to pick on you even more for getting them into trouble. And I guess sheer numbers and sheer space suggest that there will be more bullies if your children are at a bigger school.  So the importance of your child getting in with a good crowd of friends that can protect and absorb any threats from undesirables is a huge one.  But how to foster that when parents have so little involvement in secondary schooling?  Gone are the PTA meetings, social events and coffee mornings at many places.  From what mothers of older children have told me, your son or daughter tells you they're going home with a friend after school and often you've never heard of them, have no idea where they live or what they're like.  Your "I'm not a snob but I am really" hackles start to rise!

That's why my friend - in fact, three of my friends - have opted for private school. More attention, less chance of getting beaten up. But is it worth it for the lack of competition from 'normal' people that you'll face every day in adulthood and working life? Is facing up to bullies a rite of passage that nearly every child has to go through?  There seem to be so many websites out there for new mums but none for new mums of tweenagers! Any tips?

CHURCHILL

For my own part, looking out upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished; no one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and better days.

A lesser known part of his speech from 70 years ago today.

Here's mine, derived from my blog words

21) NO SUCH THING AS A FREE HOLIDAY?

What’s a holiday for? A chance to prop open a novel while soaking up the sun? To go hill-walking, rock climbing, sight-seeing or meandering down country lanes, snail-like, in an overstuffed car?

Well, every other parent I spoke to in July had plumped for some form of camping this summer. Whether in a trailer tent, camper van or fully-fledged austerity in a farmer’s field, we each swapped notes on the most effective insect repellent to pack; the best tinned substances to stash away and the worst scare stories on communal shower blocks, then set off in our different directions.

Comparing notes again after the event, we've all enjoyed the great outdoors and the children have roamed free range while picking up a few life skills along the way. The main difference between our holiday and others' was that our accommodation was free. We hadn’t won a competition or borrowed a friend’s place. This was a “barter stay” where my husband and I each worked for 20 hours over four days in exchange for a fully kitted-out bell tent for a week. (I say 'worked' but that's a bit of an exaggeration.... ) In addition, the owners cooked us a delicious barbecued smorgasbord beside the communal camp fire on our last night.

Instead of forking out £635 for that week or £875 for a seriously luxurious lodge at the site, we stripped beds, collected barbecue and wood-burning stove ash, wheelbarrowed new stocks of logs, crockery, topped-up paraffin lamps and tea lights to the tents and beat back a bit of bracken. Normally quite happy to pay our way, we opted for this because it sounded a bit different and we wanted to get a bit of an insight into the running of the place while still having time to explore Yorkshire – somewhere, woefully, I’d never been before.

A quick phone call to the owners reassured me that we could do this while our two sons, nine and seven, played safely nearby and they had a week available that suited us for the one weekly volunteer couple or foursome that they accept.

Jolly Days Luxury Camping is at Buttercrambe Wood, near the Viking battleground of Stamford Bridge, half an hour’s drive from York. It’s been open for two years and is run by architect and designer Christian and Carolyn Von Outersterp. They’d lost a few million running a business in London so their new venture had to work. And it seems to be on the right track.

“We got the idea from staying at a bush camp in Kenya. It had mosquito nets and comfortable beds. We didn’t see why we couldn’t replicate the idea here – all the wonders of the outdoors but with added extras to make our guests’ stay more like a hotel experience,” says Carolyn.

“It’s wonderful to see the city types gradually unwind as they start to soak up the tranquility of a place like this.”

It’s the couple’s relaxed attitude and the little retro chic touches they’ve added that catch the eye. “Welly Boot Way” is a path beside which spare boots are upended on a rack, like flowers, for visitors to borrow. Wheelbarrows for transporting suitcases, logs of wood and tins of beans to your tent double up as a makeshift child’s joyride. There are two white, wooden shower blocks, each with large sinks for washing up; three decent-sized hot shower cubicles; separate sinks with mirrors; a power point for hairdryers; electric lighting and, joy of joys, soft loo roll! The reception tent has a wicker hamper crammed with maps and books you can borrow and an honesty box/IOU book for the posh lollies, lemonade, snacks, hot drinks and charcoal on sale, alongside a mobile phone charging point for online addicts.

The site runs on only five kilowatts of electricity so candles and torches are a must, but that adds to the eco-credentials Christian is so keen to preserve.

“It involves a lot of maintenance. There’s always something to paint, make or mend. We have to replace the bell tents every October because mildew takes hold once the rain sets in, but we source them locally. We also use reclaimed furniture wherever possible, which we simply paint white.”

For lodge-tent dwellers, that furniture includes a four-poster bed with muslin drapes, separate bedroom complete with twin beds, wardrobes, a Victorian slipper bath, a couple of sofas and candelabras, creating a wonderfully romantic setting.

Even the bell-tents, have coir matting on top of wooden decking, cushions, soft blankets, paraffin lamps and pretty bunting slung inside the tent. It feels a bit like cheating - this isn't real camping! So it's a good job there are wasps, woodlice and cooing wood pigeons at dawn to give that authentic sleeping-under-the-stars feel, but that sleep is on back-friendly futons with duvets and pillows.

With a Duke of Edinburgh Award and 17-year military career between us, my husband and I know a thing or two about rucksacks, route maps and rainy route marches. But it was heartening to gradually confine those experiences to memory. We washed the children’s socks, blackened by endless earthy football matches under the trees, and munched barely palatable soya mince bolognaise for just one meal, purely as catharsis. A few hours of restoring eco-order in the undergrowth may have entailed gaining a few blisters but an inner glow from burning calories, rather than a hole in our pockets, was the order of the day.

A canopy, covering both the tent opening and a wooden hut, containing a two-ring gas stove and all our cooking utensils, meant we could barbecue or eat al fresco in all weathers. Frozen rather than hot water bottles chilled our cool box and a wood-burning stove kept us warm.
Meanwhile, many of the younger campers took a break from zooming off on their bikes for a short course in bushcraft and archery under the expert instruction of former headteacher Andrew Middleton who holds regular sessions at the site.

There was also time to wander down The Shambles in York city centre, to visit the Jorvik viking Centre, to terrify ourselves at York Dungeons and munch on fish and chips in the quaint seaside town of Robin Hood's Bay, as well as strawberry picking at the farm shop farm a mile and a half away.

The children loved staying up late roasting marshmallows over the campfire while we sipped wine and got to know our fellow campers. Add because we'd added a bargain into the bargain, we were smiling all the way to the bank! And, by the sounds of it, so are the owners.

“We’ve now been approached by nine or ten other landowners throughout the UK who are interested in us setting up an identical business for them so we may start to become involved more in that aspect of the business in future,” says Christian.

So, who knows, my ‘little secret’ may soon start to become more commonplace – let’s hope so!

20) NOSTALGIA

If I was to breathe in the sweet perfume of a biscuit barrel filled with custard creams or the congealed stench of those third of a pint bottles of full-fat milk, I would instantly be transported back to break time circa 1982.

I was a tomboy of about 11 and had just moved from a comprehensive junior school in the Midlands into a world where I shared a “common room” with fellow girl pupils, all dressed in brown - though there was nothing common about anyone else there, as far as I could tell.

I was at a boarding school with parents living overseas, three sisters at other institutions and other family and friends a seemingly endless train journey away, so writing and receiving letters became my full-time hobby.

The joyous mid-morning ritual of the post arriving was something we all looked forward to. We would gather round a green, felt board criss-crossed with black elastic and marked out with the letters of the alphabet. Craning my neck, I’d try to see from the back of the queue whether anything had been wedged into the section to which my surname belonged.

On the occasion when I spotted my mother’s neatly hand-scripted style on airmail paper, I was overjoyed. Her words were tightly packed together and often ran down the side of the page, as if she was trying to cram in as much news as possible. Often, there was a squiggled note from Dad at the bottom and I learnt early on how to avoid tearing open those airmail folds too harshly for fear of ripping off the crucial sentence end!

Later, the letters became typed or tapped out on our new Amstrad computer -a huge, revered cream object for which my mum sewed special green dust covers.

Time pressures later meant that there was one carbon-copied letter for all four sisters. The lucky one got the original and the unluckiest got the barley-legible whispers of the smudged bottom copy. But they were always careful to make sure we took it in turns and there was usual a tailor-made biroed message to each of us individually.

The written word became so valuable that I still can’t bear to part with any of the crumpled, folded, scribbled-on and elastic-banded letters I received at that time.

Those words of encouragement drove me on and I’d write reams back. It’s cringe-making to read some of the teenage rubbish I used to tell them; some of the concerns that I was so pre-occupied with at the time that really weren’t important.

I expect I told them I was envious of a girl called Helen who often had weekly parcels of fruit cake and ‘tuck.’ No way would my family spend money on things like that for me - the school was feeding me wasn’t it?

We had special wooden lockers where we kept our stash and one of the first things we were obliged to purchase was a padlock for our private locker.

Some girls gathered beside theirs in the evenings to nibble on their favourite snacks before bed or stash away their secret something or others.

The dictionary describes nostalgia as “a yearning of some period of the past or wistful memories of it.” And while I don’t want to back to the past, there are some days when a certain smell or song or a certain feeling makes me wallow in nostlagia and switching off from the present moment, feels just right.

Although I sometimes denounce writing as a lonely, passive occupation, it is a doing thing. Words can fill an empty moment and the right words, thoughtfully put together, can inspire, make sense of the senseless and give us cheer or purpose. So I won’t be throwing out any of those old dog-eared letters just yet.

What takes your mind back to a bygone time – pleasant or otherwise?

19) DOWNSHIFTING

Well, it's D-Day today. My husband's last job in the military after a 17-year career. It's taken him to Singapore, Portugal, Thailand, The Seychelles - all very briefly. But mostly to Plymouth, Portsmouth and now Pirbright. (Well, that's where the kids go to school, and it's the nearest place to us that begins with a P!)

So, come September, he'll no longer be Lt Commander but Lt Commuter, bound for the 0716 to Waterloo. He's really excited about it; so lucky to have got a job to go to after leaving and glad to have made the move while he's still young enough to retrain. Hopefully, it'll be a smooth transition. He's a creature of habit and routine but I think after the summer off, bar one or two resettlement courses, he'll be keen to get started.

In fact, I've been interrupted, he's just walked through the door, wearing his uniform for one of the last times ever after a morning of farewell speeches and too many cakes. And he's said he's a little worried about how it's going to impact on me.

As an independent, go-getting career woman (well, someone who's taken that route because her house-keeping and cake-baking skills are non-existent), I'll have to spend more time at home.  It'll mean I have to juggle my work even more than I do already as he won't be able to help with school drop offs and picks ups. But I don't work regular days enough to justify the childminder/au pair thing. So, I've decided to spend more time writing, properly, and generally enjoy being more of a homebody. We might even get a dog!

I'm finding this quite difficult to admit. I feel like I HAVE to work because I got to a certain stage with my career 10 years ago and then having the children brought it to a gradual standstill. Then we moved abroad. Now I've got my head back round the technology again and climbed a little way up the ladder, albeit only on a freelance basis, but I don't want to slide back down the snake at the next throw of the dice.

Plus, we've settled in Surrey - of all the not-cheap places - because this is where we ended up, so we need to make ends meet. My income's always been an added extra that's made me feel entitled to buy the odd thing for me. I'm not the Jimmy Choo's type (I wish!) but I don't want to feel even more guilty than I already do for buying a new pair of shoes/jeans/glasses.

I've considered studying for a year and would love to do a law degree, but for the cost! I've considered going into teaching but then reasoned that I ought to use the qualifications that I've got. So, I'm going to write, from home, as often as possible, and see what my keyboard has tapped out by the end of the year.

When I'm feeling confident I think I can do it but I constantly have doubts. Look at the books out there: the inspiration that spawned blueeyedboy by Joanne Harris, which has an additional blog on myspace as well as an iTunes playlist to supplement the story. The literary crafting that someone as young as Zadie Smith churned out. I'm nowhere near their league. And for all the derogatory sneers at chicklit, mastering a convincing plotline and writing about romance is a tough gig.

But if I don't give it a go, I'll never know. So here's to a future where I'll be keeping you fellow bloggers company on a more regular basis come September.