Say aaah....

So I've been brushing Ghin's six teeth now for a few months. Of course it was bound to happen. I left the toothbrush floating about the sink and he grabbed it and then began to 'brush' his own teeth. He loves brushing his teeth. And he has such a grown up expression on his face. Deeply concentrated and so serious, as if he was formulating some sort of vital address to an august body of bearded white haired men.




Oisin, ever my clown, is demoing the sesame snaps we made with the leftover toasted sesame seeds from the hummus we made for the fair.

I grovel and apologise about not having Advent pictures. It was too late by the time i realised i didn't have the camera and it was soooo annoying because the fair was so beautiful, as usual. Also, it was pissing down with rain, blowing a gale and it was freezing over. I have seldom seen such awful weather, simply because we are usually indoors when such weather occurs. I think i may have been out on a mountain once...however, the fair WAS a success with takings up from last year and the parent body put on a really really good show. I was so proud to be part of such a great school. Despite all the ups and downs we have, i have never regretted one second sending Oisin there. Even if he doesn't learn anything academic, which isn't the case, just being enfolded in such a loving, aesthetically pleasing community, has to be good for the soul, and ultimately that is what we're in the business of right? making sure that our souls are kind, soft and gentle.

I was so tired today. I think i'm coming down with some sort of bug. A gastric flu maybe - my tummy felt weird and then i began to feel cold - which is usually a sign for me that i'm about to go under. So i said, i'm not going through this and whacked some Lemsip in. I get my rest but i really don't see why i should go through the symptoms of something as annoying as a flu. It's not like you get a good fever going and burn it all off. No you just feel as if you're about to expire and curl up like some forgotten prawn at a cheap buffet. Anyway, i got home after a shop at LIDL - must budget! on account of the ££ i spent yesterday - at the witching hour of 4. On top of the flu that was starting, i now had three hours with the kids to do something. Ordinarily i might have begun cooking, but i was too tired. So i just sat on the floor of the living room and stared at the boys making castles with the boxes which had carried our shopping. I nearly caved with the TV - but didn't. (We have set ourselves the challenge of not watching TV for the next three weeks.) Instead i went upstairs and took a shower and then felt more like a human being. However, while i was in the shower, i did wish that perhaps i could have half an hour to myself, when i could just let go. How did those women of the past do it? Be 100 per cent on call for their kids - for their dozens and dozens of kids? It just doesn't seem possible that you could have like 8 or twelve children and still remain sane. Maybe they didn't remain sane. Maybe they had them all in straight jackets. Maybe they were in straight jackets themselves. And it wasn't so long ago.

I got a book about Steiner education at the fair. Again, it reassured me. It seems odd to say this now, but academics are really overrated. How educated does one have to be in order to live right? In fact, it gets in the way sometimes, i think. Direct action is often far more truthful than all this faffing around that structures and insitutions end up doing. I understand the frustration of RSPB wardens sometimes with all the goddamned paperwork. What was also interesting, was the way in which we want to force our children to grow up, not unlike the way in which we 'force' plants and livestock to grow larger, be meatier, exist in places they shouldn't. No child should really be reading or writing or doing numbers before the age of 7. I think that the reading and writing of numbers and letters have become an obsession or a fetish. It's part colonisation, part delusion. Partly about power as well. Oral cultures have existed since time began. The ability to transmit your culture orally is almost like the best indicator of a living, sensitive, caring culture. Only when the circumstances are right, can oral transmission occur. A culture that relies on the written word is one which is beginning to fragment. Also the written word can be twisted. Misinterpreted. Lost. Of course can also heppen with speech, but much less so. Anyone who has misread an email will be able to tell you the difference between the written and spoken word. The written word is about the exercise of power. Land rights, the law, accounts, etc. Covering your ass by priting out emails. Manipulation. Narrative. That's the written word. It's about proof, not trust. And that's how it came to exercise so much power over us.