Making a spectacle of ourselves...

Torvy has joined the rest of the family in making a spectacle of himself. He has recently been complaining about not being able to see far off objects clearly. So when his vision test came due this year, it was no surprise that he had to get glasses. He is the only one of the four of us who is shortsighted, the rest of us have just the opposite problem. He also has an astigmatism which was picked up for the first time this year. He was quite pleased to have to get them and is rather taken with them. Totally different reaction from my generation. Mind you - the range of frames available makes all the difference, and he has chosen a pretty nifty pair, I'm sure you'll agree!

Björn has of course worn glasses for long sightedness (hyperopia) since he was 4 and contact lenses since he was 10. As the opthalmic surgeon in Cape Town (Rudi Claassens) suggested - and the British optometrists disputed - with the onset of puberty, his eyesight improved dramatically. He had to have his prescription reassessed and the change was remarkable. He had to replace all his contact lenses, of which he had quite a stock at that point. The extent of the improvement is such that he now very seldom wears either glasses or lenses. According to the optometrist on his last visit, he can see as well as the next person, his eyes just have to work harder to focus, making it very much his choice as to whether to wear any aids or not. Since he plays a fair amount of sport including men's cricket, he obviously copes just fine!

I was next in line, starting to wear specs about three and a half years ago for presbyopia - that condition that comes to us in our middle years when our arms suddenly seem to have become too short to hold the reading matter at a distance suitable for reading. On my 19th birthday, the optometrist "foretold" that I would need glasses by the age of 40. He was only about 18 months out. I am now on my second pair.


Next to succumb to the need for longer arms was John. He has had his reading glasses for about a year. Notice how he turns into his mother the moment he puts them on! The resemblance is startling. He seems not to need them as much as I need mine, though - I can't complete a sudoku without mine, whereas he seems to cope just fine.

What a spectacular family we are...

The boys

Here is a picture of the boys taken today. A friend sent a picture of her girls, and they have changed so much since we last saw a picture of them, I thought I had better post a picture of my large lads. Björn on the left, Torvy on the right.

Merry Christ-mas

Far be it from this family to wish you happy holidays or merry crimble. Politically correct or not, it is Christ-mas. Tis the reason for the season. Yes we know that it is unlikely that Jesus was actually born at this time of the year - that's not the point. The point is that He was born. In fact, the whole point of Christmas is Easter.

The family is very well. John and I have just had our work Christmas dos and my birthday is almost upon us - sure signs that Christmas is not far off. Björn has drawn up the menu (although I'll be doing most of the cooking, no doubt) and Torvy has designed the table and bought the required items for the execution of his design.

I have already had one birthday gift: my permanent residence permit came through this morning. After six months of waiting and chasing and phone calls and and and. Wahey!

John has done a lot of travelling this year; New York, Paris and a little place in Italy called Carpi (no, not Capri). He has managed to shed some of the load from the Ops side, so that he can focus on getting the newly acquired businesses on track with their IT systems. Their legacy systems range from "state of the ark" to modern-but-incompatible. He is still playing ice hockey and racking up the injuries, but loving it as much as ever. He has broken at least two sticks and one skate blade this year. He still has almost all his hair, but it is now a combination of white and grey.

Björn is officially the tallest member of the family. He looks a lot older than 15 and we have to rely on his good sense not to accept the things he is offered by people who assume that he is old enough. So far, so good. He has been a bit bored at school, since the teachers are focussing on those in danger of not making the cut in the forthcoming GCSEs, so the brighter kids tend to get a little disaffected. He has a sweet girlfriend called Chaz who has lasted longer than anyone since Chrissy.

In spite of being a real cutie, Torvy is still "single, but looking"! His curls are now below shoulder length. He continues to excel at his music lessons. His teacher is now teaching him bass as well as 6-string accoustic. He plays with a band called Me, Him and Him (don't ask!) and they get together every Saturday to practise. He has settled in beautifully at high school and seems to have made a good impression on most of his teachers.

I am still singing in the church band and John and I still lead a cell group (although that isn't going very well). John looks after the technical stuff at the back of the meeting one month out of two (not the sound desk - we have a pro in for that). The boys go to the youth activities and help out as stewards during meetings. Björn also teaches Sunday school occasionally. Torvy is hoping to join the youth band as soon as he is proficient enough to be able to improvise when he encounters a new song. I still do the PowerPoints for the lead elder's sermons.

I am still with Capita, but there are plans afoot for a restructure and I am hoping to move into a new role. More about that if and when...

I am going great guns with my Master's degree, although I have yet to learn anything new. Strange as that may sound, I take comfort that my self-directed learning as been effective in bringing me up to a postgrad level. I'm sure I will reach new territory in due course, but for now I enjoy the opportunity to discourse with my classmates.

We recently traded in the black Peugeot for a newer model. This one is silver. We still have John's "longboat" (the huge Volvo) although it only gets used about once a week.

Other than that, I think all that remains is for me to wish you and yours a blessed Christmas and a wonderful 2007. Remember: wise men sought Him then and wise men still seek Him now. God bless.

Update

Torvy is doing well at high school and seems to have made a very positive impression on his teachers. He works hard, and seems to bring home far more homework than Björn ever has. The fact that his teachers are so well-disposed towards him is a credit to their ability to see beyond the surface - his hair is now below his shoulders and is a peculiar mixture of straight(ish) and curly locks. He is enjoying his music and is making pretty good progress on both his accoustic and bass guitars. He and some friends have formed a band, and they get together to practise every Saturday.

He and his class have just returned from a residential school trip, which he appears to have enjoyed, in spite of his complaints about the food - "manky" was how he described it, and he appears not to have laid eyes on a vegetable for the duration of his stay. For someone who eats as healthily as Torvy does, this is not acceptable. I'm sure it played havoc with his digestive system.

He is smitten with a girl from the school, and spent much time with her during the trip, but the fact that she has a boyfriend has been something of an impediment. I was quite surprised when I went to collect him on Friday, to hear the teachers telling him that his homework assignment was to advise the two student mentors who went along if he has increased success with this girl. Interesting!

Björn is doing less well at school. This being the start of GCSEs, the teachers are focusing on the borderline kids to try to get them through and improve the school's standing on the league tables. As a consequence, the brighter kids like Björn have just disengaged. I got a call yesterday (Sunday afternoon, mind) from his English teacher, wanting to set up a meeting with him and me to discuss his underachievement. While I accept that he needs to make an effort, the teachers need to make an effort to engage him, too. After all, he is 15 and can't be expected to understand the long-term results of a lack of effort now. I have long called for the recognition of exceptionally kids as having "special needs" as much as those with learning disabilities. Finally, voices like mine have been heard and the government has introduced a system whereby these kids are being identified and being taught skills for extended and self-directed learning. Sadly, Björn was off sick when they wrote the tests (Sod's law!) and had to try to do them during a normal lesson on his return. Of course, he struggled to concentrate, turned in below-par work and missed the cut by a few marks. Ah well!

Of course, there is a girlfriend on the scene. Quite a sweet lass, really, and somewhat funky, with pink and black hair.

We have definitely entered the heavy rock phase of the boys' lives - Torvy wants to have his eyebrow pierced, while Björn is more keen to have his lower lip done and a hole punched in his earlobe. And we're not talking piercing here, folks, when I say "hole punched" - we are referring to a process something like the Zulus do. We are holding out. We are prepared to allow them to pierce ears - lobes and/or cartilege, but that's about as funky as it gets. Torvy already has the cartilege of one ear pierced.

Both boys are passing up the opportunity to go to a formal ball in order to go to a rock concert instead.

On the flip side though, on Sunday morning, John and I suddenly noticed that Björn wasn't in church. Somewhat peeved that he had gone off without letting us know and increasingly suspicious as to his wherabouts, we instigated a search. We found him... teaching Sunday School. We felt a little sheepish, to say the least!

John has managed to unload some of the Ops responsibility at work. His company has recently bought a few new businesses and he really needs time to focus on upgrading their kit, getting them connected to the network, and seeing to it that they know the systems and abide by the protocols. Because Ops is so deadline driven, that kept taking precedence, so it was good to be able to hand that over to his most severe critic. His view: "Let's see how she manages!"

I am enjoying my studies, although I find academics quite blinkered in a lot of ways. No offense to all my teacher relatives and friends, but I am also increasingly concerned that children are prepared for careers by people who have no experience of business, or any career other than teaching. Most of my classmates are teachers and when they talk about careers, they seem limited in focus to the professions: doctor, teacher, engineer, lawyer. I would imagine that the percentage uptake into the professions is rather small. Far more people are likely to be employed by commercial concerns where they will need very different skills, which are not being taught, let alone assessed at school. Hey ho!