Romeis family

The end of an era

2007-06-30T21:31:00.000Z

I thought I would add a quick post to mark the end of an era. Torvy has finally (aged not quite 14) ousted most of his stuffed toys. They have been languishing in the bottom of his wardrobe for some time, but tonight the axe finally fell for all but a select few, including Nala, his first ever stuffed toy. Should the day ever come that she gets the chop, I shall secrete her in my wardrobe until his own children come along. After all, Björn still has Tender Bear, and the same rule applies to him. Not to mention the fact that we still have John's 46 year old Scruffy Bear!

I confess to a lump in my throat at the sight of the toys piled up in the passage. They made a sizeable pile and it was a slightly pathetic sight. He has loved stuffed animals with such disregard for popular opinion that I recognise it as a milestone that he now feels he has outgrown them

A converted stable!

2007-06-15T17:48:00.000Z

After John's tankdriving experience, we spent the night with some people we know in Winchester. I met the husband at work - he has a contract with my current client - and we hit it off straight away. So we invited them to join us for a braai a few weeks back. Since they live in Winchester, when they heard about our forthcoming jaunt there, they immediately insisted that we spend the night with them. It's a long time since we've encountered that kind of hospitality, but the wife is from a small town Afrikaans family, and it comes as second nature to her.

They have a lovely home, part of which was a 16th century stable, and we spent a very pleasant evening with them.

Playing soldiers

2007-06-15T17:31:00.000Z

For his birthday this year, I gave John one of those Experience Voucher things. This one was for a half day of driving tanks and things. When he was in the army, he was a transport officer, so he got to drive just about everything with wheels. But he neither drove nor travelled in anything with tracks, and he regreeted that fact. So this was his chance.

He booked his session for a time of year when he could hope for decent weater, which was thins Saturday past.

So bright and early on Saturday morning, we tootled down to Winchester. John spent the morning bucketing about on a quadbike:

A tank:

An armoured personnel carrier:

And an Abbot:

Looking for new schools

2007-06-07T16:51:00.000Z

Things aren't looking good for Torvy at school. The bullying continues sporadically and his academic performance is slipping. We have had a run-in with one teacher and look set to have one with another teacher. He has simply given up on maths.

In despair, we have started looking around at other schools. Yesterday we went on a tour of a grammar school outside of the MK local authority (MK doesn't have grammar schools). We were quite impressed with the school, and it quickly became clear that Beej would excel there. This exactly what happened before when we looked at a private school because Torvy was struggling - it looked good for Björn but not for Torvy.

Grammar schools have a selection process, unlike the kids' current school which take kids who live in their catchment. Normally, kids write an optional exam called the 11+ in Year 6, and they get selected or rejected by grammar schools on the basis of their scores. We didn't bother with these because there are no grammar schools in MK. The school we looked at yesterday is the only one within a reasonable distance. It has the highest criteria in the county, and is enormously oversubscribed. When kids apply to go there after Year 7, obviously it's too late for the 11+, so the school runs separate tests. They can choose to test a child or not, and they base this decision on academic performance.

In Björn's case this is not a problem, because he has done a set of high school exams last year, and aced them. Torvy hasn't done any yet, so decisions in respect of him would have to be based on his CAT predictors (predictions made at the beginning of Year 8 of how well they are expected to do when they write their GCSEs 4 years later). He didn't do very well on those, so the chances are slim that the school will even agree to test him. (Note: Björn's CATs weren't great either, because he was sick when he took them, but he is totally outperforming the predictions)

We desperately want to get Torvy out of Stantonbury Campus, but all the options seem only to be available to Björn, who will do well wherever he goes - including staying at Stantonbury. So we have aching hearts and a quandary to deal with. Bearing in mind that kids from grammar schools get a better look from the top universities, do we split them up, and give Björn the opportunity of going to an elite school? Do we deny Björn this opportunity because Torvy can't get in anywhere else? Torvy's academic potential might not be as great as his brother's but he's still a bright kid and he's being allowed to slip through the cracks. We can't stand by and watch that happen, but there seem to be no courses of action open to us.

What to do, what to do....

Innovations in learning conference

2007-05-21T20:37:00.000Z

I recently asked my boss if I could go to the Brandon Hall Innovations in Learning conference. It costs no more than any other conference I might attend - half the price of some. The problem is that it takes place in Santa Clara, California. The cost of travel and accommodation add up to a lot more than the conference.

So my bosses said no.

I was bummed, but not astonished. I had an idea that the conference organisers could have made a plan to include those of us outside of the US with things like simulcast and I posted on my professional blog to say so.

Imagine my astonishment when one of the leading lights in the world of informal learning (in fact, the inventor of the term) offers to try and get me a complimentary ticket! It seems he is doing the closing keynote for the conference and expects to be able to pull some strings. Why me? No idea. It seems I am making some pretty influential friends in my field.

So John is trying to make the numbers work on the airfare and the hotels. I don't know what I did to deserve the man, but I'm glad I did it. I'm almost completely certain that (with already two other conferences, and a quarter of my MA to pay for this year), there is no way we can do it, but I'm flattered beyond reckoning at the offer of the comp from Jay, and touched to the bottom of my heart at John's attitude. I was and still am keen as mustard to go, but you know, even if I don't make it, the conference has already impacted my life!

Gutted! No conference for Karyn

2007-05-18T10:48:00.000Z

I have just learned from my boss that my request to attend the Innovations in Learning conference in California in September has been turned down. I was almost ready to sell a body part to go, but sadly my zeal was not matched by that of the higher ups in my organisation. :-(

John is urging me to tot up the total cost and see if we can't make it happen without their help, but I can't see it, myself. In corporate terms it's a small amount of money, but for an inividual, the seminar costs, plus the travel, plus the airfare... well it all adds up.

Whenever I broach the subject of a conference or seminar, I am always reminded how my company already pays for my MA. Well, just to get it off my chest, I would like to mention that they only pay half. So far, the cost to them has been about £50/month, which they probably write off against tax anyway. Plus they aren't doing this as a gift to me out of the goodness of their hearts. They fully expect to benefit from every scrap of learning that I undertake, whether they have paid for it or not. And, of course, they will. I can't exactly keep newly learned ideas and approaches in a separate compartment from my daily practice. They benefit from all the learning and experience I had before I joined the company. They will benefit from all the learning and experience I have while I am with the company. They will only stop benefitting from all of this the day I leave, and, in fact, if that happens to be before or less than 12 months after the completion of my MA, I have to reimburse them anyway, so they're in a win-win situation.

Aargh!

Just because...

2007-05-17T22:08:00.000Z

Having published a recent picture that showcases Torvy's hair, I thought I should do the same for Björn. I'm quite proud of this - I did it for him! Sadly, the (permanent) black washed out in sections quite quickly. Fortunately, the resultant 3-tone look is just as good as the two-tone, but I don't have a picture... sorry.

Poor Torvy!

2007-05-17T21:39:00.000Z

I thought I'd publish a cheerful photo to prove he isn't always downhearted! This was taking while clowning around on holiday recently in Mallorca.

Torvy has been taking a great deal of strain lately. He has been the victim of a sustained campaign of bullying unlrelated to the many that have gone before.

It started on his paper round. A kid who lived along his route started threatening to do him harm if he showed his face in that area again. We phoned the police, but they told us that they could only intervene if the child actually did him physical harm. Well excuse me for not wanting to hold out for an actionable offence! Torvy switched rounds and the kid who took over from him got punched in the face by the kid on his first time out.

Then the kid identified Torvy at school and started making his life a misery there. Threatening him with beatings and shoving him around. The new paper round is still within sight of the old one, and Torvy reached the point of being in stark terror of going out to do his round in case the child saw him and decided to follow him home. He was too afraid to report it through the appropriate channels at school for fear of reprisals.

Today he finally went and reported it, and I backed it up with a call from home. He was able to identify the child from the school's photo database. Let's hope there is some success as a consequence.

Two stories about cars

2007-05-05T10:03:00.000Z

Recently I had to travel through to London for meeting with my boss. The meeting didn't go as well as I had hoped, so when I got back to my car at the station and found that it had been "keyed" all along the rear door and fender on the passenger side, I felt sick and hollow. I have reported the matter to the police, but I didn't see any CCTV cameras in the parking lot, so I don't expect much. Whoever did it had obviously had a field day, because several other cars in the parking lot had been done as well. Charming.

On the flip side, later that day, the car hire company delivered the car I was to use for a business trip down to Reading the next day. I always use a hire car for these trips (a) because it's the cheapest option for the company - we have such a good deal with the car hire company that it's cheaper than paying me 40p per mile for the use of my car, and (b) because I don't like racking up that kind of mileage on my car - you see, I take good care of it, which is why the vandalism bothered me so much. But I digress...

Usually, the hire car is a Nissan Micra, or a Ford Ka, Vauxhall Corsa or some other roller skate. The previous time, I had been given a Vauxhall Astra, and had been pretty pleased with that. This time, they only rolled in in a Renault Megane convertible! I kid you not. I had to be shown how to use the roof and the weird credit-card-instead-of-a-key thing.

The next day the weather didn't look too great to start with, and I thought, "Great, the one time in my life I get to drive a convertible and I can't put the top down." But half way to Reading, the sun was out. The route I take includes a tree-lined lane, where the branches meet overhead. As it is, I usually wind up with an idiotic grin on my face as I drive along that section of the route, but picture this: There I was swanning along like a poser, with the top down, the music up and the smell of the trees everywhere. Too cool. Too cool.

I spent 6 hours in Reading, waiting for a meeting that didn't happen, and left the office in a foul mood. But then I got into that car and hit the buttons for the roof and the radio, and all was suddenly right with my world. I made the two hour trip back home in the sunshine, singing at the top of my voice, much to the amusement of several other motorists.

Sometimes it doesn't take much. I certainly recommend that everyone, at least once in their life, should drive a convertible in the sun with the top down. If the wind bothers you, close the windows - it works.

Let me tell you something about John

2007-05-04T17:13:00.000Z

I gather that it has become something of a standing joke that every general update we send, via email or this blog, includes the news that nothing has changed for John on the job-front, but that he continues his search.

No offence, but I wish it was funny from where we sit.

John has held his current job for nearly 8 years, at a time when the average length of time for an IT post is 18 months-3 years. If you don't follow this trend, it is very easy to get stuck in a catch-22 situation from which it becomes ever more difficult to break free.

John is enormously talented as both a business and a systems analyst. He also has better corporate awareness than is usual with IT people. His current and his previous job both started as rescues because the organisations had got themselves into a real IT pickle. In both cases, he brought together this skillset and singlehandedly transformed their systems, streamlining, cutting the dross, redefining all the SLAs, fixing what has been broken. He understands the big picture better than most, and he works hard. Very hard. Often thanklessly. With offices in Europe and the US, he is often fielding calls at ridiculous hours.

Unavoidably, the passage of time has meant that he has grown older. In a time when age-ism is alive and well in the world of IT, he cannot change the fact that he is middle aged. Unfortunately for him, he looks even older than he is, something he could only change by being a more self-absorbed, vain man. And every time you you have an application rejected, no matter who you are, it becomes that little bit more difficult to send in the next one.

Recently, he was contacted by a company in trouble. Once again, it was a case of an implementation gone bad. The (private) company had been left in the lurch by key staff members who walked away from the mess. John would be perfect for the role, but the owner is understandably cautious. He doesn't want to make a long term decision in this crisis time. He wants someone who will come in temporarily and fix the problem. Then he will reconsider the position with a more level head when things are less fraught. John can't afford to walk away from what he has on this basis. Consider the evidence: what are the chances that he would find something else after a year, once he has fixed the problem and worked himself out of a job?

So he stays where he is, being faithful in the little. Giving more than his employer deserves. Never losing faith that the God has His reasons.

So let me tell you something. Last night I was in a discussion group. I was facing the door, but the other discussion leader had his back to it. The moment John walked into the room, Craig said, "Has John just arrived?" How did he know? Apparently my face lit up like a beacon. I have been married to that man for 19 years this month, and he still makes my world a better place just by being there. He is my rock.

I wish I could go to those interviews on John's behalf. I could tell them a thing or two about his commitment, his loyalty, his dedication, his pride in his work, the care he takes of his staff. If people can't see the true value of that man, then they need to have their eyes tested!

Long silence

2007-04-29T22:13:00.000Z

I realise that it's been a while since the last post on this blog. I'm not sure how many of you are still reading it, but just in case you're still out there and you've begun to think we might have dropped off the face of the earth, rest assured that we are still here.

The purchase of the big warehouse for our church is going ahead. We expect to be moving in during May. I suspect we're in for an interesting period ahead! We have been meeting in the sports hall of the boys' school for a couple of years now, but for the next three weeks, we're havig "sardine Sundays" in our old building, to contrast with the new one when we get there. Our cell group is leading the Alpha course that starts this week. It should be interesting when we have to cope with the move in the middle of it, but I'm sure it will all work out fine. After a long stagnant period, our cell group has begun to grow quite rapidly, and some of the people need a fair amount of support.

Björn continues to grow apace and is now around 174cms tall. He is hoping desperately to make 6 foot (180cms), but isn't confident that he will make it. I reckon his chances are pretty good. He is closing in on some pretty important exams, which have him completed unfazed (surprise, surprise). He is still doing his paper round and enjoying the benefits of the extra money. Perhaps once he's 16 he can get a better paid job. He still has another year of GCSEs to go and then he'll be staying on for his A levels. He is really keen to do a gap year after that, and we're looking into some options for him. He's quite keen on the idea of the working on a game reserve in Africa for a year, and there are organisations that offer these, but John knows a guy who owns an upmarket resort in a reserve, so we thought we might ask him if he can arrange something. Although he hasn't had lessons for some time now, Björn has been playing his guitar quite a bit again lately. Recently a guy with a prophetic ministry visited our church and said he saw Björn surrounded by music notes. Just that day he had been writing a song! He has joined a band with two friends, but we'll have to see if it amounts to anything. At this age, they tend not to stick with things that long. Torvy's band broke up a while ago. Now that the better weather is here, he's enjoying the return to the athletics track.

Torvy's voice is beginning to break, and he has become quite truculent at times. Sadly, my affectionate little boy has disappeared to be replaced by a moody teenager who just wants to be left alone. I am suffering from cuddle-withdrawal! However, he is doing very well at school. He is also doing a paper round, but he had a bit of trouble recently with threats and intimidation from some neighbourhood bullies, so he switched to a different round. The lad who took over Torvy's round is the son of a lonely man we have been befriending in the area (his wife died a year ago), and he told us that his son had been punched by these kids the very first time he did the round. The same prophetic speaker as I mentioned earlier took one look at Torvy and said that his love of drawing and sketching was going to be something that God would use. Unlike the rest of us, Torvy has never been a reader or a sportsman. In many ways, he has felt like the odd one out in this family, but he has always been able to sit happily drawing for hours on end. If I were to come up with a name for what he does, I would call it narrative art. His pictures are often incredibly complex stories. I think it made a huge difference to him to her about this from a complete stranger.

John is going for a job interview tomorrow. This time, the guy called him. The business has just undergone a failed new implementation and the FD and IT manager have just walked out, leaving the owner flat. John was recommended by a consultant. He's keen on the challenge, but he's only prepared to take it on under the right circumstances. PLus there's the little matter of John's 3 month notice period and the guy's urgent need. Hmm. Pray, folks, please! He's enjoying his hockey, and has remained injury free for a while. He's looking forward to the cricket season, which is just getting underway. The prophetic guy said that John was moving into something new, something big. He said leadership, and mentioned eldership, but said he couldn't be sure that John was going to be an elder. I also have my doubts on that score: eldership within this church movement is a different prospect from what we're used to and involves preaching, something John has never shown any inclination towards. This is a confirmation of what one of the elders spoke over him a few months back.

Then we come to me. One of the reasons I have been so "quiet" lately is that things haven't been going great guns for me. I have been overstretched with all my commitments, and have received a pretty raw deal at work recently. I have had little time to get any exercise, so my weight has increased, too. I have passed one module with merit on my MA course, submitted my assignment for another, and start the third on 8 May. I am busy with two mandatory modules that run sporadically over 2 years, as well. My thoughts have begun to turn towards my dissertation, and I have had some ideas, but still need to get some guidance from my supervisor (who has yet to be appointed). I am still short of one module, but there isn't much else on the Education prospectus that appeals or applies, so I'm looking to do something from another award and transfer the credit over. Hopefully this will all happen soon. As to the work thing, we have had a major restructure since the last one I mentioned and it's really damaged the staf morale. My boss looks as if he's been hit just as hard as we have. Nevertheless, there was a new role being made available. I asked my boss to let me have the role and, having told me that I was a very good fit for the role, he has given it to someone else. The someone else has asked me for my help because he doesn't have the skills to do the job. Great, huh? Talk about a slap in the face for someone who keeps hearing how valuable she is to the team, how much her skills are admired, yadda yadda. I've since then applied for two jobs, neither of which are really in the area I want my career to develop, but I need to make a move - my motivation levels are rock bottom.

Anyway, it's not all doom and gloom. We are enjoying the great weather. We spent a great day with the Carter-Smiths today. We recently spent a lovely day with the Mitchells. The boys are well and thriving. I'm enjoying my studies. My professional blog is gaining me a reputation in the global community. Great things are happening at church. I am making great progress in leading worship. People have begun to realise that John has something valuable to bring to the table. However, we don't get enough sleep and every day is too short!

Mallorca/Majorca - it´s all the same thing!

2007-04-02T13:02:00.001Z

We´re on holiday in Majorca at the moment. Up to now, we´ve used John´s mobile phnone as a modem, which is very expensive, so I haven´t been able to post about the fact that we´re here. Now today, I´m in an internet cafe at the excellent rate of 1 euro (can´t find the right key for the symbol) per 30 mins, and of course, I can´t upload the pictures! Rats.

Anyway - our hotel room looks straight out to sea, which is turquoise. The sun shone the first few days, although it wasn´t very hot. Today it´s raining, so it´s time for some alternative activities. We have eaten the most delicious food.

We have found the warnings true that the English (or those thought to be English) get short shrift from the locals. I even got accused of shoplifting in one place. At least, I think that´s what they were saying! The shopkeepers and service staff al speak pretty good German and German tourists abound. There are even German TV channels in the hotel, but no English. We have taken to speaking to each other in a mixture of Swedish and Afrikaans. When we are asked if we are English or German, we say "Neither, but we can speak English." Instant change. Last night, the restaurateur served Björn a sangria, although he is underage (we were present) simply because he expressed an interest in them. Then he produced free liqueurs for the adults and some free non-alcoholic beverage for the kids, and gave us a bottle of wine as a gift when we left, calling us a "lovely family".

Torvy has spent hours in the pool each day - he is in his element if he can just get to swim, that lad! Björn has watched hours of curling and similarly breath-taking sports (yawn) on telly. We have watched movies in Spanish and German. Ri-ight. We have drunk cocktails. We have walked along the beach. I have been to the gym and for a run.

We plan to set out on some more adventurous forays, but that can wait... we´re not on a schedule!

Having said that, my time is almost up on the internet connection, so best wishes all round. ¡Hasta luego!

Mallorca/Majorca - it´s all the same thing!

2007-04-02T13:02:00.000Z

I hugged a legend!

2007-03-21T21:49:00.000Z

Last night John and I went to London to see Sizwe Bansi is Dead with the two original cast members, John Kani and Winston Ntshona (who are also two of the three co-authors, the third being Athol Fugard). If you don't know the story, you really need to research it. Sadly, this is the last time these two giants of South African theatre history will be doing it.

Thanks to an arrangement by the UCT alumni association, we attended a reception afterwards that was attended by John Kani.

The play is set in PE in the 70s, and it got right into me. One of the characters was from King William's Town, making it very close to home. You knew that they were telling the stories of people they knew and it hurt, even when it was funny. Maybe especially when it was funny. So much so that, when Kani arrived at the reception, I went to this total stranger and hugged him and burst into tears. He was lovely. So gracious. He hugged me right back and kissed me on the head, as if he were comforting me. I can't explain how I felt in that moment, but I think he must have encountered that reaction many times before. I'm not one for being starstruck and I'm not much impressed by fame, but this was something different. I think I would only have felt more moved if I had met Mandela himself!

Someone took our picture. Of course, my eyes were puffy and my makeup was gone, but I'm very proud of it, just the same.

Some recent pictures of the boys

2007-03-10T22:07:00.000Z

Here is a picture of Torvy taken today in Camden, resplendent in his new jacket. All the pictures of Björn include his new girlfriend, and without her parents' permission, I can't publish them here, so I'm including one of him taken in December in a very typical pose!

Torvy: the good feedback continues

2007-03-01T15:11:00.000Z

Following my recent post about the boys' good reports, I recently had a chat with Torvy's tutor. She is delighted with him. She speaks highly of his attitude, his commitment, the way he taken ownership of his workload, his diligence. She says that, while he has a tendency to chat in class (my son? Well I never!), he is not truculent, and takes correction in good part.

We are very proud of the way he has settled in at high school. It's funny, though, how people jump to conclusions about him based on his appearance (quick description: he has long hair and wears kinda funky clothes - denim jeans, T-shirt with a slogan or picture of Jimi Hendrix, suit jacket, studded belt, Converse trainers, spiked wristband, topped off with a rainbow striped chullo hat- see picture). People in our church have now given up asking us when we're going to make him get a haircut, and have (in some cases reluctantly) decided to get over it and accept him for himself, but outside of the church it's a different matter. Older folks give him filthy looks, younger folks offer to sell him cannabis or hurl abuse at him for being an "effing greebo". It's bee a real eye-opener. Those of us who know him, know that he is neither a thug nor a drug-user, but that doesn't change what people think when they see him!

He has a girlfriend called Laura these days. This is not the young lass he was attempting to romance via msn-by-candlelight. Her name is Laura and she's the year ahead of him at school. They have been going out together for 3 weeks, so it's practically forever! He spent last Saturday afternoon at her house, so I guess we need to think about having her over to spend some time at our house, soon.

Björn gains work experience

2007-03-01T14:51:00.000Z

This week and next week, Björn is doing what is called "work experience". He is working as a lab assistant at a company called Beardow Adams, which manufactures hot melt adhesives. This week, he is working in the testing lab. Next week, he will spend one day in the office and the rest of the week in a different lab.

The idea is to give kids in their first year of GCSEs (14 to 15 year olds) a taste of what working life is like. Perhaps the idea is to scare them into staying on for 6th form rather than entering the world of employment at 16! I've seen kids at the bank before, wearing badges that proclaim them to be on work experience, and they have sat there watching other people work, looking bored out of their skulls. Fortunately, they get a list of options to choose from and Björn got his first choice. He chose things that would give him a chance to actually do something, and he is thoroughly enjoying himself!

On Tuesday, one of the guys in the lab gave him a written test. He did pretty well considering it was only his second day on the job! He got 32/40. But more impressive than his score to me was the humour he managed to inject. One question asked him to "describe the difference between "centipoise" and "poise"", to which he replied: "One has "centi" in front". Needless to say, he got no marks for that one - although strictly speaking, his answer can't be said to be wrong ;-). Another question asked: "Describe in detail one use for the finished product." Björn gave a correct answer (that it gets shipped off all around the globe to be melted down and used to seal cereal boxes), then added "In some cases it meets Glew (the female) and they have little Pritt sticks together." I defy you to top that!

Tomorrow, as he finishes in the test lab, he has to do another test, and he has been advised that any score below 49/50 will be considered poor. I am confident that he will not disappoint!

Two young rockers

2007-02-22T20:15:00.000Z

It's a little weird getting used to having two young rockers in the house - especially when they go to gigs looking like this!

Ah well, I guess every generation has its weird fads in the teen years - I can't remember what they were in my teens, but my parents' generation had teddy boys and hippies, so this too shall probably pass!

Happy birthday, John!

2007-02-16T11:18:00.000Z

Edit: okay - here's the promised photo. Better late than never.

Today is John's birthday. I will have to take a picture later on and add it to this post. The boys gave him music, and I gave him a voucher to spend a day driving a tank, a quadbike, a cannon thing and an armoured personnel carrier. He also got a DVD from his family in SA and my Mom sent some money, which he has yet to spend.

Tonight we're going out for dinner to a restaurant called Amici in Bedford (which is where I work - about 20 miles/32kms from home). It's the only place we have ever encountered good steak in the UK. The ridiculous thing is that it's an Italian restaurant, owned by Egyptians! Who'da thunk that you'd find better steak there than at one of the American-type eateries?

Björn's baptism

2007-02-11T21:35:00.000Z

Tonight Björn got baptised. The two youngsters you see doing the honours are Andy and Fliss, the two youth cell leaders. Andy is Björn's cell leader, who appears to be developing quite and annointed preaching ministry and is really good at straight talk with the kids on subjects that matter to them.
Richard, the lead elder, read him Hebrews 6:19 about a hope and an anchor, and prayed that Jesus would be Björn's anchor. That there will be firm anchor through all of life's troubles.

Dan, one of the youth leaders, spoke to him about the fact that he has his ear pierced twice. Explaining that, when a freed slave chose to continue as a bond servant, his ear would be pierced as a symbol of his commitment. Also, in the Bible, when something is mentioned twice, it is to emphasise the significance of that truth. Dan prayed that Björn's double piercing would be symbolic of the depth of his commitment to be God's bondservant, and that this would be true of him all the days of his life.

John spoke of Joshua and Caleb and told him it was up to him to make good on the words spoken over his life.

I told him his abilities and talents afforded him a wide choice of adventures to embark on in his life, and that it was my prayer that he would embrace this one above all.

One young man spoke over Björn how he had seen Björn's heart change since he had been filled with the Holy Spirit, and encouraged him to use his natural competitiveness to push forward for God. A young girl with Down's also brought him a message, but sadly, due to her speech impediment, it was difficult to understand, but we think she was saying how she admired him and how the family would support him. Another young man brought him a section from Psalm 4, encouraging him to be a light in this age of drink, drugs and meaningless sex.

Equilibrium

2007-02-09T14:18:00.000Z

I thought I would relate an incident from yesterday. I still laugh when I think about it – I just hope it works in writing, although I don’t have a great deal of confidence that it will.

John went to work as usual, since the trains were running (by some miracle). Björn went off to his girlfriend’s house on foot. This left Torvy and me at home. I was working via remote access, but Torvy was most disconsolate, since he had hoped to go to a friend’s house, but this fell through.

Once I had achieved my main goals for the morning, I decided to take a break and go and have a snowball fight with the lad. We were becoming increasingly energetic (I have a stiff throwing arm today, as evidence), when I took a snowball full in the face. “Hang on, Torvy,” I said, “I just need a moment to recover my equilibrium,” (an expression we use a lot in the family). But before I had even finished speaking, Torvy had shoved a snowball down my neck, producing an earsplitting shriek.

Less than a minute later, I took a very large snowball right in the eyes, and the crystals scratched my eyeballs something fierce (still sore today). I was standing there, hands over my eyes, totally unable to see, when my incorrigible son said with every semblance of concern, “Sorry, Mom. Do you need a moment to recover your equilibriaaaargh?”

You can imagine that this will be the norm, now. No-one will recover their equilibrium ever again. It will ever more be equilibriaaaaargh. What a goblin!

Tags:

Snow

It snew!!!

2007-02-08T15:55:00.000Z

This is the most snow we've had since arriving in the UK. Possibly the most we've had cumulatively. The school was closed and we were advised not to drive. So I stayed home and worked from here. Björn walked to Charlotte's house and spent the day there with friends. Torvy was let down by a friend, so I took a few breaks and let him destroy me in a snowball fight. See the photos on our flickr pages.

Good reports

2007-02-05T19:14:00.000Z

The kids just got their reports, and both have done very well. At this stage they are rated by their teachers as to whether they are performing at, above or below the level expected of them. They are also given a rating of Excellent, Good, Fair or (heaven forbid) Causing concern for their effort, behaviour and homework in each subject.

Of course, Torvy is doing more subjects than Björn at this stage and has to persevere for two years with subjects in which he has no interest, before being allowed to make some selections at the end of Y9. His results show that he is performing as expected in most subjects. The only two subjects in which he is underperforming are science (which is sad, since it used to be his favourite before his current teacher ruined it for him - not a pleasant lady, both the boys have had her for science now, and she really is terrible at her job!) and design and technology (DT). He is exceeding expectations in art, dance and French. He scored a solid core of "goods" with a pinch of "fairs" and a liberal sprinkling of "excellents".

He hasn't had any exam results or teacher assessments, yet, but he is very diligent and is racking up the credits left and right. Fortunately for him, he is in a very high performing group (since they don't practice setting at this school, it is very much luck of the draw - Björn for example is in a fairly low achieving group, which does nothing to spur him on!). When he has done class tests, he has scored extremely high results, but has still been outperformed by a good proportion of the kids.

Björn is underperforming in English humanities - all his other subjects are "as expected". This teacher has identified him as having a great deal of potential and has spotted his tendency to coast, so she has made it her personal mission to get him to pull his finger out. She's doing a good job, too! He complains bitterly, but is forced to admit that she is no more than absolutely fair. Sadly, he scored no "above expecteds", but I think the expectations on him are very high. He is certainly being pegged for As and A*s in almost all his subjects. Like Torvy, he has a solid core of "goods", but in his case, the pinch is of "excellents" with the liberal sprinkling being of "fairs". His rating for homework was the poorest category. Now there's a surprise!

Björn also brought home a more detailed report, with the teachers commenting in more depth on his performance in each subject. These comments are of the sort that you would expect for a very bright kid who is coasting his way to above average results that are nevertheless lower than he is capable of achieving. However, the feedback from his science teacher has got me walking on a pink cloud of maternal pride:

"Björn's depth of knowledge in science never ceases to surprise me. He is an excellent student. His end of module test results are uniformly high and evidence that he spends time outside of lessons ensuring his knowledge is refreshed. With a more organised approach (Karyn's comment: Björn? Organised? Well, we can all dream, I guess!) to revision he could achieve an A* in this subject. Björn has an equiring mind and a sharp intellect and it is a pleasure having him in my Science group."

Björn is reaching the stage where he starts talking about selecting his A-level subjects. The norm is to do 3 of these, but he wants to do four: three sciences (physics, biology and chemistry) and maths. To our surprise, he is being discouraged by the teachers - not for putting all his eggs so very firmly in one basket, as you might expect, but for attempting to take on more than the required minimum. Fortunately the head of 6th form is prepared to override his teachers and let him have a go at the increased workload if he still wants to by the time he gets there. He has however, recommended that he spread his net a little wider, and we are encouraging him to consider other options. There are 28 subjects available at A level, so he is bound to find something else he wants to do.

In the meantime, he needs to pull his socks up and apply himself to get the sort of results he is capable of.

Hmm - perhaps not!

2007-02-02T18:50:00.000Z

Yesterday I went to an exhibition in London. A colleague and I met on the station and decided to start the day in the expo food hall with a cup of coffee and a catch up on a team meeting the previous day. I asked, as I always do, whether they had decaff.

Brief interruption: When we were in the US we found that there was decaff available everywhere. And not just a sort of backup instant coffee deal. Proper coffee. Most civilised. The first time I asked at a small kiosk if they had decaff, the guy looked at me weirdly and said, "Of course!" Contrast that with the UK where they have decaff in some places, usually in the form of little sachets of instant. Bleagh! Even more extreme, in Sweden in 2001, the waitress at the coffee shop looked dazed and repeated slowly, "Caffeine-free coffee? Caffeine-free coffee?" She didn't quite say "Does not compute" out loud, but her face did!

Anyway, back to the story. The man proudly informed me that they did, indeed, cater to new age weirdos like me, and produced the inevitable sachet. Now read this next bit slowly. Preferably out loud.

He opened it with his teeth. WITH HIS TEETH, ladies and gentlemen!

I was still reeling from this, when the waitress started restocking the milk containers from a supply of the plastic bottles that are used in the UK. These have a plastic strip attached to the cap that runs around the neck of the bottle to prevent tampering and prove that the bottle has been unopened. The girl was tearing these off - you guessed it - with her teeth.

When it came to lunch time, I joined forces with another colleague and went to a nearby restaurant. I didn't want to take a chance that the staff in the food hall might have rolled the wraps with their tongues, or packaged the sandwiches with their feet!

Church plans - prayer request

2007-01-23T12:54:00.000Z

When we joined New Life Church about 4 years ago, it met in a small building that it was already outgrowing. Since then, two congregations have been planted out into the south and west of Milton Keynes respectively, and the remaining church is still too big to fit into the old building. While we still own it, and use it for all sorts of purposes, our Sunday meetings take place in the sports hall of the boys' school. It's a bit of a strange experience, since the hall is overlooked by various passages and venues, and the accoustics are none too marvellous, but it has served us well.

Of course, we have been looking for a more permanent home suitable for our growing needs. There have been various words of prophecy around the growth of the church, and the word 1000 keeps coming up. We are nowhere near that size, yet, but we are growing fast.

There are no sites in MK for a church of that size. We are looking at buying a building that is currently a warehouse. There are, of course, all sorts of issues around rezoning and so on that need to be resolved, but these are going down like dominoes (another word that has come up in prophecy). The building is going to cost us a fortune, but the banks are unexpectedly positive about mortgages and so on. However, the challenge is for the church to pay a large whack to keep the mortgage manageable.

To this end, we are all looking to commit to making some level of financial contribution. Richard (our lead elder) talks of equal sacrifice, not equal giving. One of the approaches that has been introduced is a first for me. They are including the teenagers and the kids. So these young people will make their own contributions, rather than being included in the contributions of their parents. I really like this idea. Obviously the amounts the kids can give are unlikely to amount to much in a purely fiscal sense, but the fact that their contributions are sought and are considered to carry equal weight with those of their parents, gives them a sense of equal ownership of the work of the church and their standing within the church. And let's not forget the story of the loaves and the fishes - it was a child who made that ludicrously inadequate initial donation which, in the hands of the Lord, became enough and to spare. They are not the children of the "members" (we don't have official membership, by the way - for various reasons), they are themselves a part of the work. They have been given gift forms of their to complete.

So each of our boys must have peace with his own decision. I will respect their confidence by not revealing their initial reactions or current stance on this matter. Suffice to say that it is between each of them and God. It's their money, their church, their business. We will guide and support them. No more, no less.

For those praying types among you - we could certainly do with prayer support through this time of decision making. All four of us. The pledges must be in within 5 weeks.

Paper rounds all round

2007-01-23T12:47:00.000Z

About a year ago, Björn put his name on a waiting list for a paper round in our area. We had all but forgotten about it, especially since he had a very lucrative job through the summer at our local greengrocer. However, that job has all but fizzled out, since the weather turned colder and the fruit and veg no longer need to be packed away into fridges overnight.

So it was great timing that he got a call to say that there was a paper round available in our area. Initially there was a bit of a mix up as to whether there were two rounds a week or just one, and the upshot of the calls to resolve the issue resulted in a paper round for Torvy as well.

So Torvy has a round of 97 houses once a week, while Björn has a slightly larger (and therefore more lucrative) round twice a week. Wahey! I'm not quite sure how much they will each earn, but together with their allowance, they should be doing quite well for themselves. I am about to post about the plans for our church, and you will see timely how this!

Digital natives and candle wax

2007-01-23T12:20:00.000Z

On Tuesdays, I work at home. This is because Tuesday is the evening I head through to Oxford for lectures, and it's a shorter drive from home than from work. At the moment, I have to use the family PC for my home-based work, because my laptop has recently taken it into its head not to talk to our wireless network for more than a few minutes before dropping the connection. This is usually not a major hassle.

Today, however, is a different matter. Today, the family PC's keyboard sports many keys that have developed an unhealthy fixation upon their neighbours. The cause? Candle wax dear reader. "Candle wax?" I hear you ask, as well you might. Well, it's like this...

In this house, we have two digital natives, two members of the net generation (net gen) or generation Z. These are people who conduct their relationships online and who make full use of the always-on connectivity that symbolises this age. Several hours of online discussion via msn (an instant messaging tool, for the uninitiated) with several friends at once is a daily occurrence. More power to them, I say. When the time comes for them to be remote workers/telecommuters, it'll be an ingrained habit.

However, back to my story: Torvy has put this to slightly creative use. He is trying to romance a rather beautiful girl (for those who knew her, she looks a lot like Jenni Tredoux) who is a few months older and a year ahead at school (strangely both Björn's successful relationships have been with girls a school year ahead, too). To this end, he adopted a method I shall call msn-by-candlelight. I kid you not. Very sweet. Very original. Very creative. Very romantic. Not so good for the keyboard, though.

If anyone knows of successful methods of fostering an atmosphere of romance online without destroying electronic devices, please let Torvy know. Anyone who knows of a way of removing wax from a keyboard, please let me know!

Janet and John go to London

2007-01-19T10:32:00.000Z

Okay - it was actually Karyn and John that went to London, but no-one ever thought to include my name in a series of children's early readers, so what can you do?

Yesterday - a very windy morning - John set off to London for work as usual. A little while later, I did likewise, having agreed to run a workshop for some of my colleagues on behalf of my boss, who has been ill for some time. While I was on the train, I got a text message from John to say, "I hope you've left already - the trains are running late and slow." I had noticed - our train was crawling in to the city, which our driver had announced was due to a blanket speed restriction. This, we later discovered, was in case of trees on the line.

John was late for work. My train took well over an hour to make the 35 minute trip, and I was also behind schedule. I took a tube from Euston to Victoria, then stood waiting for my connection to St James's Park. Nothing. I walked to the London office in a howling headwind.

After my workshop, I walked back to Victoria - once again in a headwind (the wind must have shifted!) and caught the tube to Goodge Street and then walked through the howling gale to meet John for lunch. We spent a very civilised hour eating Scandinavian food, then parted company - he back to his office, I to get the tube to Euston and thence home. Or so I thought. Ha!

I arrived at Euston to see the word CANCELLED across every scheduled train. The friendly announcer advised us that no trains were leaving London from Euston for the rest of the day due to high winds which had stranded several trains out in the middle on nowhere, blocking off lines. Enquiries revelaed that all other north London stations were closing as well. The station forecourt was jam-packed and all around me people were calling friends, relatives, taxis, car hire firms, hotels. Others were swarming into the tube station which was substantially more claustrophobic than usual. Very quickly, the hotels and taxis cottoned on to what was happening and the prices started to rise.

I headed back to John's office, this time on foot, since I couldn't bear the tubes under such crowded conditions. The wind was by now 99mph. One little old lady was offered the arm of a complete stranger. Isn't it amazing how adverse conditions bring out the best in us - if only the same applied to the hotels and taxis!

John set me up in one of their offices, with an Internet connection and I was able to access my emails and stuff as if I were in the office. Isn't technology great?

But we still had to figure out how to get home. We had made all the calls to cancel cell group and let the kids know what was happening, but we were determined to get the heck out of Dodge. I got several worried texts from Torvy, begging us to find a way home. John tried every car hire firm he could think of, but even at £130 for a day, they were fresh out. We wound up hiring a taxi at £260-odd (which Marchpole will cover... and no doubt claim back from the rail company... who will no doubt claim it back from their insurance companies), sharing the ride with two of John's colleagues who were more or less on our way home. The taxi arrived shortly after 6pm, and we were on our way by about 6:15, eventually arriving home at about 9pm.

The roads were much clearer than we had expected under the circumstances, and many people had a far worse time of it. Some of my colleagues got stuck in Birmingham, hired a car and made it as far as Rugby before becoming gridlocked and having to find a hotel for the night. Someone else we know was "fortunate" to find that coaches had been laid on from his station - he got home at 2am.

Nevertheless, the stress must have got to me, because I faded soon after we got home, and really struggled to get up this morning, in spite of having had a full 8 hours' sleep for the first weeknight in ages.

The trains are better today, but still not back at 100%. John has (of course) gone to work - diligent little soldier that he is - I just hope he gets home okay! I am back in my office, hearing stories from all over of the sort of night that people had.

No wonder English people talk about the weather so much!

Tags:

Weather

An unexpected proposal

2007-01-13T17:27:00.000Z

John returned home from New York yesterday with the usual armful of souvenir gifts. We each got a supporter's sweater for the New Jersey Devils (the team he got to see live on Wednesday), while his colleague gave him a NJD jersey which he will wear with pride tomorrow night at practice! He also brought back large quantities of cinnamon chewing gum (not readily available in the UK), gloves for the boys and, last but not least, he went down on bended knee, presented me with a white gold, blue topaz and diamond ring and proposed. Yes - proposed!

When he originally informed me we were going to get married, due partly to a bad past experience, and partly to a lack of funds, he gave me a (valuable on many levels) pendant of his own in lieu of an engagement ring. It might have been an unconventional approach - but it worked! I have no idea what made him decide to do this at this stage (other than a very pushy New York saleslady!), but I'm having a great giggle about being engaged at this late stage!

Tying up a loose end

2007-01-09T11:30:00.000Z

I was reading back through this blog and I came across the post in which I fulminated about my university fees. I thought it only polite to bring you up to date on that situation, since I'm sure you've been having sleepless nights worrying about it ;-)

I managed to strike a deal with the head of finance. Because the error had been theirs, the UK fee structure would stand, pending my producing evidence of "indefinite leave to remain" by end Jan. As you know, this arrived in mid-December, so I was able to fulfill this requirement. I am now legally on the same fee structure as everyone else.

John is in New York at the moment. Tomorrow night he is going to see his favourite ice hockey team (the New Jersey Devils) play an NHL game. His colleague over there is treating him. They will be sitting centre ice, seven rows from the front. It doesn't get much better than that. He is recognisable as a hockey player himself at the moment, thanks to a telltale cut across the bridge of his nose. They regularly get cut just in that spot - it's where the helmet hits when they smash into something

The boys went back to school yesterday. Björn went keenly, since he could show off his ear, which has brought him plenty of derision, I understand. Torvy went less eagerly. He has never liked school, thanks to a bit of a rough start in September 99 when he was a year behind everyone else and had to bust a gut to catch up.

I went back to work last Tuesday (2 Jan) and made it all the way to lunch before admitting defeat. I had started coming down with what I thought was a cold on New Year's eve, but by Tuesday I was feeling awful. My eyeballs ached and burned and my neck ached so much I was loathe to move my head. I dragged my sorry butt back home and took to my bed. I only felt well enough to return to work yesterday, and even then I was fading by the afternoon. The worst is over, but I'm still short of breath and coughing "productively". I seem to have escaped lightly, though - many people I know have been out of circulation for two weeks or more with this thing.

Not a cheerful note to end on, but scroll back up to the top for a reminder that things are actually positive!

Ear-piercing

2007-01-08T18:06:00.000Z

Björn has decided to follow Torvy's example and have his ear pierced. Only he decided to have two holes put in his.

His plan, once the holes have healed is to put a single sleeper ring through the two holes. I hope for his sake that the holes are the right distance apart for that!

The boys went out with a group of friends on what they call a random walk recently. It involves taking cameras along and photographing each other in funny situations - getting a photo of each person's feet and then one of everyone's feet. During the course of the afternoon, oneof the girls straightened Björn's hair and put eyeliner on both boys - only one eye each. Later that evening, a guy walked past us and muttered "f-ing emos" under his breath.

Labels fly thick and fast among teens at the moment: goth, chav (council housing associated vermin), emo (emotional), grebe, skater, scene, townie, pikey. And it's mainly to do with how people dress and wear their hair/make-up. When someone calls Björn an emo, it's meant as an insult, and Björn feels insulted, even though he intentionally cultivates an emo look - especially when he goes to a gig - and accepts that the label fits. Torvy, on the other hand, is currently identifying himself as a grebe - hence the hat. He is totally philosophical when this epithet is spat at him.

Making a spectacle of ourselves...

2006-12-23T18:13:00.000Z

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

2006-12-20T16:53:00.000Z

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

2006-12-16T15:34:00.000Z

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

2006-12-04T15:48:00.000Z

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!

Robyn's birthday

2006-11-07T14:33:00.000Z

Today is Robyn's 40th birthday. Like most of us, she is trying to persuade herself and everyone else that there has been a gross miscalculation, and that she is, in fact, only 39 this year. What she doesn't appreciate is that for me, her 40th birthday is even worse than it is for her: she is, after all, my younger sister, so her milestones mean that I'm even more past it.

Nevertheless... Happy birthday Robyn!

As a feeble attempt to send her autumn in England as a gift, since she was unable to come here and fetch it herself, this was my gift to her. It's the sort of gift that can be shared. If my skills with the camera were greater, the gift would be better, but it is what it is. Enjoy.

Tags:

Autumn
2006

All dressed up and...

2006-10-20T19:24:00.000Z

Today was break-up day at school for the boys. The idea was to dress in business suits and spray their hair. Here you see the results. Sadly, Torvy decided to gel his hair before spraying the colour on, so it showed up less effectively, but it's green. I don't think I need to explain what colour Björn's is!

How do you spell NGNGNGNG?

2006-10-17T11:13:00.000Z

I have just discovered that I am expected to pay nearly double the fees of my classmates for my course at Oxford Brookes. Why? Because I'm a foreigner. I could scream!

The enquiry process leading up to my application took nearly 3 months. At no point did anyone mention this. In fact, I have an email stating in black and white that my fees would be £310 per module. On the basis of this, my employers agreed to pay half my fees. All good so far. I later saw the page on the website indicating this amount and stating that international students had to pay £590. I didn't think that applied to me. I thought that applied to people not actually resident in the UK, coming in especially to study at Oxford. I even commented on the irony of the fact that every single one of those people was coming in from a country with a weaker currency.

From the time of my enrollment, I have been asking for an invoice. A month ago, my course started and I once again asked for an invoice. Instead, on Saturday (four weeks into the course) I got a Student Payment Instruction form, indicating a per-module fee of £590. Talk about your average bolt from the blue!

I contacted the university to point out the mistake. No mistake, they tell me. That's the fee for foreign students. No amount of explaining that I have lived here for over 7 years, that I pay taxes here, that the only home I own is here, that the NHS provides me with free medical without expecting any levies because of my nationality... none of that made any difference. It matters not that I have already made a major contribution to the learning of my classmates and that I am probably the most motivated student in the class. My passport says South African. End of.

I am now down to the fact that they quoted me a fee of £310 in writing and fighting that corner tooth and nail. C'mon all you praying types - this wall needs to come down. I have seen other bureaucratic walls come down in the face of prayer (British Embassy Pretoria, 1999, just for a start!). Let's do it again.

A trip to Tanzania?

2006-10-09T20:20:00.000Z

Björn and I have just been to a meeting at school for those who want to take part in a Tanzanian exchange in August 2008. They will climb Mt Kilimanjaro, spend two weeks in a Tanzanian boarding school, go on safari and finish off with two days on the beach on Zanzibar. It sounds like the growth experience of a lifetime. He is dead keen, so he didn't hear the words like: altitude sickness, malaria, diarrhoea, long-drop toilets, lecture style lessons, no textbooks.

In the two years leading up to that time, they will have to raise £100K to pay for their trip out and the Tanzanians' trip here (there is no way they can pay for themselves). This will involve both group and individual find fundraising efforts. They will attend basic Swahili lessons, although their lessons will be in English, and undergo training in hill/mountain walking. While they are there, they will carry out community work in an orphanage.

The teachers who will lead the party went over in the summer and found the conditions in the orphanage quite hard to handle - especially in respect of the way those with special needs - especially mental disabilities - are treated. They also had to watch the slaughter of a goat, which they found tough, since they expected the goat to die quickly, which it didn't.

I think the girls who go will find it even more difficult, since the girls' school is inferior to the boys' and their conditions harsher. Before they go home for the holidays, the Tanzanian girls' heads are shaven so that their parents aren't tempted to take the opportunity to marry them off instead of educating them.

Many of the "boys" at the boys' school are in their 20's, which John and I would have taken for granted, being familiar with African education, but it shocked the English, since the school system here is based on age, rather than progress. Neither of the schools has any ICT kit whatsoever, and the few textbooks they have date back to the 60's or earlier. Not all the children even have their own pens.

I'm sure it will be the experience of a lifetime, if he is able to produce the level of commitment necessary to raise the funds and acquire the skills required. It's bound to broaden him and open his eyes to his own privileged state. We will support his efforts in every way we can, but he needs to take ownership of this himself - this is is his trip, his project.

It's official

2006-10-08T14:47:00.000Z

Björn is now the tallest in the family! Today is his 15th birthday and we did the traditional measuring thing straight after the waking-him-up-with-cake thing. He is now 172.5cm tall - 1/2cm taller than his Dad. Wahey! This picture was taken at the Eastern restaurant we visited today for lunch.

He began his GCSEs in September, which will take him the next two years, whereafter he will do 6th form (A levels). He is likely to take a gap year before heading to university, although that isn't necessarily a given. We will have to see what options are available. We would like him to be able to go and spend a year abroad, working in an environment that will challenge him physically before he knuckles down to study again.

He is an intelligent, pleasant-natured boy, confident to the point of arrogance sometimes, but we guess life will teach him balance. He wants to study forensics at university one day, and, while I think he'd be bored stiff by chemistry, I think he would love ballistics.

He has a very nice physique and is inordinately proud of his "8-pack". His part time job at the greengrocery certainly helps with that - he spends a lot of time lifting and carrying. He is still doing pretty well at sport and is keen to try his hand at decathlon - I think he ought to be quite good at it, he has a good balance of tack and field skills. We have to make enquiries as to what age that starts and where he can get training - school athletics being somewhat limited.

His face has changed quite dramatically over the past two years, and his dear little button has been transformed into a more - ahem! - generously proportioned Norton nose. His jaw has also lengthened significantly. As you can see, he is wearing his hair a little on the long side - it remains to be seen how long he can put up with it, though - he gets irritated with hair in his face.

He is no longer playing the guitar, and is looking to sell his kit. He has had several girlfriends, none of whom have lasted more than a couple of weeks (I think it will take him a while to find someone to replace Chrissy - what is it about one's first love?), but is currently single. That's not to say that he isn't usually to be found in the centre of a knot of girls, though!

His teachers are, on the whole, very pleased with him. His food technology (cookery) teacher attends our church. In fact she teaches both boys, and she came over today to tell me how lovely they are to teach. That's the sort of thing parents like to hear. Of course, it's also very nice that they bring home all the results of their efforts, too. Mmmm. Last week there was a chicken and mushroom pie and, the week before that, a cheesy potato bake. Björn enjoys cooking and isn't bad at it. The trouble is that at home he gets distracted by TV, computer, PS2, etc., and tends to forget to keep an eye on the stove. At school, he can stay focused on the task at hand. When he disciplines himself, he makes some pretty decent meals.

Recently, for food tech, they had to keep a food diary for 24 hours, and Björn was judged the healthiest eater in the class. Since he is the least healthy eater in the family and, on the day in question, he had a bag of crisps and a bag of sweets (out of the ordinary for him), one wonders about the dietary habits of the rest of the class. I guess we shouldn't, though - the average Brit's poor eating habits have been big news for the past couple of years, and I find myself regularly sitting with my mouth open watching people who have to be taught what the different vegetables are called (I kid you not: "Er, is it a cabbage?).

We expect that, after two years of rapid growth, Björn should slow down a bit for a couple of years, with another spurt at 17-18. Of course, that's the average - it remains to be seen if he follows typical form.

He spends his life on msn, these days, and is a typical digital native, taking full advantage of always-on connectivity.

And that's our boy in a nutshell.

Björn's enterprises

2006-09-25T14:38:00.000Z

It seems that I have been posting a lot about Torvy lately - these things seem to go in cycles. So I thought I'd let you know how things are going with Björn. He is working part time at a greengrocer's. Being underage, he earns less than minimum wage, but it's more than doing nothing, and working an average of 8 hours a week, he is building up quite a little haul.

The work is quite physical, so he gets a good workout at the same time, which he enjoys.

He has taken to buying a few sweets from the store and selling them for a profit at school. He has a huge potential market, since there are no longer any sweets, fizzy drinks, crisps or any other junk foods on sale on any school campus in the UK. All part of the healthy schools initiative. School meals all have to be healthy as do all foods and drinks available to the kids. Of course, that doesn't stop parents sending the most abominable packed lunches, so I don't know how successful it will be.

The thing is, there is an independent store on campus which sells exactly what it pleases. Y7s and 8s are not permitted to go to that shop, but anyone from Y9 and up has simply transferred their junk fix purchases there.

I admire his ever-enterprising spirit, but I am concerned about the morality of his actions. His argument is that the kids can go up to the store, so he is not doing anything questionable. I maintain that Y7s and 8s will be able to buy from him and he has no way of knowing what ages his customers are. While the cut-off line may be arbitrary, some parents of younger ones may be resting assured that their kids are maintaining a healthy diet while on campus, only to be scuppered by my son!

Hmm. Is a puzzlement.

No doubt I will be doing a sitrep about Björn again very soon, when he turns 15. Fifteen. FIFTEEN!!! Good grief. How did that happen?

Torvy's party

2006-09-24T19:25:00.000Z

Last night, we had a party for Torvy's 13th birthday. We were expecting 28 kids, but only 14 turned up. This is a tendency we have noticed - whether this is an English thing or a teenage thing, I haven't fathomed, but many kids will say they're coming and then not pitch, among them often some of the party kid's closest mates. Weird.

Fortunately, those who did attend had a whale of a time, the birthday boy included. We split them up into teams and kept them on the run all night, playing balloon volleyball, table tennis, pool and chüngel (which is always a hit).

Torvy scored a lot of money, which he is going to put towards a bass guitar. We went looking at basses today and he seems to have enough. As he test drove a few of them today, it was the first time John had seen/heard him play the bass and he was quite impressed. There's no denying it: the kid is talented!

The guy who plays bass in my worship band has offered to help him choose a bass and to mentor him. Next week, we hope that he will be able to come with us to actually buy the guitar, after which Torvy is hoping to join the youth band. He also belongs to a boy band of sorts with two of his friends, one of whom is unbelievably talented on the lead guitar and quite the little songwriter - they're just short a drummer at the moment. Any offers...?

So now he's 13

2006-09-19T14:01:00.000Z

There seems to be a lot of news about Torvy at the moment, and this post is yet another of those. For those who don't know - he became a teenager this Saturday past (16 September). So here's a quick catch-up about our newest teenager. Here you see him on the phone to one of his well-wishers. He has a habit of pacing when he is on the phone and covers fair distances during longer calls!

He is 157cm tall and weighs 47kgs. He has masses of slightly curly or very wavy golden brown hair that hangs down to his shoulders. He still has a very elfin face, but we're expecting that to change over the next year as testosterone has its wicked way with his features. We will all be sorry to see the that nose go, including Torvy himself - he has always had the neatest, most beautiful little nose in the family. Genes have not been kind to the rest of us in the olfactory area - it remains to be seen if Torvy will escape unscathed in that department!

He plays the guitar, and is quite a talented musician, having a good ear. He is planning to buy a bass guitar with his birthday money and start improving on that instrument, too.

He is not very sporty, but would like to join a gym. There is a kid's gym at school, but it's private and costs a fair amount to join. We shall have to see whether we can make the numbers work.

He is a responsible little boy, who steps up to the oche and takes ownership of whatever he is given to do (although not always cheerfully). He tends to pessimism and is a real worry-wart. He has the wackiest sense of humour and has been known to reduce the family to helpless heaps of hilarity.

Karyn's Master's degree

2006-09-14T15:57:00.000Z

I start my course on Tuesday next week. I tell you what, though: for a world-renowned university, they are seriously disorganised and totally out of touch with the real world. I spoke to my head of department on Tuesday and learned for the first time that there are all sorts of induction activities scheduled for Tues and Wed next week. Since I didn't know about them, I haven't arranged to have any time off, and it's a bit late, now! She (the HoD) was puzzled that I couldn't drop everything and attend anyway. She was sighing over my lack of commitment to the programme because I can only attend one evening of lectures a week. I've told her that I work full time, but perhaps it hasn't sunk in that, not being a teacher (unlike most of the others), my working day is longer and I don't get the school holidays. Perhaps she doesn't have kids of her own, either, since she doesn't seem to appreciate the additional demands of a family. And as for my commitments at church... why don't I just move my cell meetings to another night, and do I have to attend them (well, yes, since we lead the group)? I don't know.

So as I said, I start my course next week, but I have yet to have a meeting with a tutor to plan which modules I'm going to do when...

If I actually come out of this with a Master's degree in Educational Studies and not a BSc in plate spinning, it will be a bit of a miracle, I think!

Well THAT didn't last very long!

2006-09-14T15:54:00.000Z

Torvy and Lauren's romance lasted about 24 hours. It seems to be the destiny of my sons to have their hearts broken by Rawlins girls!

More Torvy news

2006-09-10T20:29:00.000Z

Well, it's finally happened. Starting high school seems to be the time for getting paired off, and Torvy has proved no exception. He has got himself a girlfriend. Oddly, not someone from school, but a girl from church that he has known for years. Even more oddly, this girl is the younger sister Chrissie! Her name is Lauren, and they have been sort of circling around each other for ages, so I guess it was bound to happen.

Torvy's update

2006-09-07T11:15:00.000Z

Today Torvy set off to high school for the very first time. He had to go on his own, since Björn only starts tomorrow (Friday - isn't that weird?). I'm sure he'll be fine - he's very sensible.

He had a rather mixed day yesterday, very good feedback from his guitar teacher who is highly impressed with him, his talent and his progress. I heard the tail end of his lesson and I was pretty impressed myself! He is playing Hey Jude, with some rather complicated fingerwork. When I arrived, he was playing it as a duet with his teacher, and it sounded great.

But the poor lad had a rather unpleasant experience on his way to the lesson. He was walking along minding his own business, with his guitar strapped across his back, when some complete stranger cycled by and punched him in the face in passing, yelling "Ha, ha!". It's not the first time I've heard of this sort of thing happening and I have even witnessed it once, but when he told me about it on the way home, I was incensed. His face was a little swollen and bruised when I collected him from his guitar lesson. We reported the matter to the police, but of course, there is little chance that he will be apprehended - the police have bigger fish to fry. We were very impressed by the way Torvy handled answering the police questions - totally calm and sensible about the whole matter.

One niggling worry is that the kid who punched him is very likely to be a pupil at the same school. The hope is that he will be in a different hall, though - with 2500 kids in the school, there is little chance of their paths crossing. Fortunately the swelling has gone and the bruising is very faint, so it shouldn't attract any unwanted attention at school. If, however, he turns out to be in the same hall as Torvy, it might be quite unnerving for the little chap, because he is fairly sure they would recognise each other - they got a good long look when the kid stared back at Torvy defiantly while cycling away, and Torvy is somewhat distinctive with all that hair!

Speaking of little - we shall have to see if he has overtaken his Granny Carol in the growth stakes when she arrives later today. Not a very tall order (haha), so quite possible.

Last days of summer

2006-09-03T18:22:00.000Z

Today was surprisingly sunny, after a few days of rain, although it was blowing fit to bust. And we discovered an unexpected characteristic of our little garden: it is very sheltered. After church, we barbecued some boerewors and sosaties, courtesy of the local South Africa shop (actually a biltong factory that has diversified over the years).

You see us here, sitting at our new outdoor table, totally sheltered, while the upper branches of the trees around the outside of our property showed how hard the wind was still blowing. Of course, the days are already getting shorter and the evenings are cooler, so we know that autumn is not far off, but the summer is not completely over.

Newday

2006-09-01T19:26:00.000Z

Well, it seems I will be unable to get the kids to blog about their experience at Newday, so I will do my best. The photo shows Torvy in one of the tents - Björn avoided having his picture taken and only appears in group shots. I'll spare you those!

There were about 5500 young people there. They spent the week enjoying teaching and worship, and doing some outreach work in the city centre. More than 280 kids made new professions of faith, while there were over 240 re-commitments to Christ. 174 people were miraculously healed. 200 people from the city signed up to attend Alpha.

Apparently there was a South African band playing for one of the worship sessions and they taught the kids a Zulu song. Then they called all kids who had lived in Africa onto the stage to teach them a dance. Surprisingly, I learned that our boys went up. The ex-pats were spread across the stage and Torvy was positioned right behind the lead singer, so whenever they zoomed in on the lead singer, there was Torvy's face on the large screens. The leader who told me about this said he looked absolutely gorgeous up there. But of course he did - he's an absolutely gorgeous boy!

A great day out

2006-08-09T20:05:00.000Z

Today was the first full day together as a family. We only have two such days, since John will be back at work on Friday, so we decided to make the most of them.

We went to a nearby "safari park" for the best part of the day. Of course, John spent many years living right at one of the gates of the Kruger National Park and his family made many, many forays into the park, so he has seen wildlife aplenty in his lifetime. I spent some holidays in wildlife parks myself growing up, and my extended family is pretty "into" wildlife. For us, therefore, the Woburn Safari Park was somewhat like an (albeit enormous) upgrade on a zoo. However, we realise that this might be the closest our boys ever get to seeing animals in their natural habitat, so we decided to go for it.

It must be said that the owners/managers have gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that the animals are comfortable and happy. Also, they have not restricted themselves to the animals of any one continent, so we saw creatures that neither John nor I would have seen in the places we visited with our families, where they strive to keep a natural ecology going. The enclosures are enormous, so the animals aren't as caged as they would be in a zoo, but they are fed, so the predators don't exercise those skills/muscles/instincts. We chose to focus on the positive, though, and were thrilled to see bears, tigers, wolves, camels, Indian elephant, wallabies, and many others besides. We took loads of pictures. We even saw a minor altercation between a pack of wolves and a bear. A few of the wolves were worrying the bear, who eventually lost it with them and swiped out at the ringleader. I swear you could amost hear the wolves snickering to themselves for managing to get the bear all riled up. In this picture, you see the start of the confrontation.

We also saw species of African animals neither of us had ever seen before. Many of the animals did seem smaller than the wild ones we've seen - especially the giraffes (who were the ones that broke my heart - of course the trees they eat don't thrive in the UK, so they have to eat out of buckets nailed to the sides of some other tree, from which all the branches had been sawn off).

In the visitors' centre, some of the animals were put through their paces for the public. We saw birds of prey, Indian elephants and sea lions. In this photo you see one of the birds put through its paces - as you can see, it was less than a metre from Björn's head, and it kept returning to that spot, missing him by inches as it passed. Perhaps it liked him!

We also went into the playground areas. I joined the boys sliding down a huge slide on doormat type things, and we all went around the adventure play area, including zip wires (foefie slides).

Long weekend in Cambridge

2006-08-07T17:07:00.000Z

John and I spent three nights at a lovely B&B in Cambridge, right on the River Cam. This is the view from our bedroom window:

This unpopulated moment was the exception rather than the norm. Many, many people travel on the river, rowing various types of craft, travelling in narrow boats or the occasional motor boat. We joined them (although nowhere near the B&B) when we went punting:

We also did a lot of eating (that's me in the turquoise baseball cap):

And generally let certain things slide (that's John behind those bristles!):

Tomorrow we go to fetch the children who seem to have had a great time at camp. I'll see if I can get one or both of them to post about it.

Björn the sportsman - still at it!

2006-07-24T18:11:00.000Z

Golf
Björn's school (which will be Torvy's too, from September) has a wonderful tradition of ending every school year with three activity days. The kids get to choose from an enormous range of activities from free basketball coaching to very expensive trips to theme parks. Some spend the three days designing and making garments, others record their own music in a studio, some go horse-riding. Björn chose to play golf, as he did last year.

They spend the first two days undergoing coaching in the various skills and then, on the third day, they play a round. For beginners, there is the 9 hole par 3 "family" course. For those with more experience, there is the full18 hole course. Last year, he broke his putter, so he caddied for a friend on day 3. This year, he was offered the chance to play the full 18 holes. He completed the course in 99. I understand (ignoramus that I am) that this is a Good Score for a first time out.

So here we have yet another sport at which he shows promise. His father's child indeed!

Cricket
On Sunday, Björn played cricket for the village social side again. He took a wicket, too! Not his first, since a victim was caught off his bowling on a previous occasion, but this time he clean bowled someone, so that was far more kudos. He also made his first foray into double figures on his runs scored for a men's team, with 13, which included a decent 4.

This time he managed to come home in one piece - no more black eyes.

Torvy's earring

2006-07-24T17:55:00.000Z

On Friday, Torvy had his ear pierced. He has been wanting to have it done for years, but we said he had to wait until he turned 13. We brought it forward by a few weeks so that it has healed enough for him to take the earring out for PE come September. Of course, gender equality being what it is, there is no more problem with boys wearing earrings than girls, but they all have to remove jewellery for PE. He was determined to have the caritilege pierced and there was a moment's worry when the first place we tried wasn't prepared to do that for anyone under 16. As you can see, however, we found someone who was prepared to do the honours, as long as I signed a parental consent form.

He plans to replace the stud with a ring in due course.

A Black-eyed B

2006-07-20T08:46:00.000Z

On Sunday, Björn took a cricket ball in the eye. He was bowling and one of his team-mates threw the ball back to him. He caught it in front of his face, it popped through his hands, hit his eye and sent him flying. Apparently he rolled three times before coming to a stop and very nearly got fined for language, as he gave voice to his pain. The captain decided to be merciful since the lad was obviously in agony, but he was cautioned. This is how he looked when I collected him from the cricket ground:And this is how he looked a day or so later when the swelling had gone down and the colour had come up:
He is very proud of his shiner - it's his first.

But who would be a teenager today? On Monday, as he walked home from school, he passed a woman walking with a much younger child who turned to his mother and stage-whispered, "Mummy, what happened to that boy's eye?" The mother's reply? "He's been fighting dear." When my son related this to me, my blood positively boiled. By and large (the swearing incident notwithstanding) he is a good kid, and he gained his black eye in the honest pursuit of a wholesome pastime. He didn't rise to the bait, which shows more maturity than I would have! I would have taken issue with the woman had I been with him, or even in his shoes.

Wahey - the video clip

2006-07-15T10:04:00.000Z

I have had no joy with trying to post a clip of Torvy being a rock star on this blog, so I created another blog where I knew I could do it, and hey presto:

Click here.

I think I might switch to using the elgg blog permanently, actually, it's far more versatile and idiot-proof! I'll let you know, though.

Our son the rock star

2006-07-13T20:52:00.000Z

We have just come back from Torvy's "school concert". What a blast! School concert is a total misnomer, conjuring up, as it does, visions of the sort of things we used to do. This was such a far cry from the sort of concerts we used to put on. The kids did most of the stuff themselves - choreography, musical arrangements, magic acts, poetry recitations (their own poetry), raps. One of the songs Torvy played with two of his mates was an original as well: Fabulously Lazy written by the kid on lead vocals. I have tried desperately to post a clip from it here, but can't figure out how to edit it down from its current size of 23MB (and that's not even the whole song!) and I can't find a place place to store anything bigger than 5MB. I'll keep looking into it, but not now - I have to drive down to Reading tomorrow for a 9am meeting, which means leaving really early, so I had best get my tail to bed!

I was blown away by how much of a natural Torvy was with that bass guitar, even the overlong hair worked. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to a dinky little guy aged 22 (but looking 15 and almost indistinguishable from the kids) - a teaching assistant at the school called Mr Webb. He looks to be a bit of a rocker himself and is very versatile. The fact that he is also "well cool" doesn't hurt, because it has raised the profile and the street cred of music among the boys, and Torvy has greatly benefitted from that.

A hectic week

2006-07-06T21:43:00.000Z

This week, John has been at a church leaders' conference in Brighton, so I have been playing single parent. I haven't been doing it very well, mind, because I have had to do a lot of travelling myself, and have been late home almost every night. I have started a new project at work and it has incredibly tight time frames, so I've been running around like a headless chicken trying to meet all the SMEs (subject matter experts, not small-to-medium enterprises) and stakeholders, so that I can get started with the design and build. It's a bit like herding cats, because there is a very large group of people to be interviewed and they're all busy with more work than they can handle.

Torvy was away on a school outing for two days, and has returned to attend a two day familiarisation at the high school he will atend with Björn from September. I had to ask someone I have only just met to collect him from his current school when he returned from the trip, because I was in Reading and everyone we know well enough to ask was away at the conference in Brighton. Then I had to get him to hang around at the school for half an hour after today's session, so that Björn could walk him home, because I was in Reading again. Tomorrow he will have to go in with Björn and wait for an hour until his session starts (fortunately several of his friends are in the same boat) and then wait again at the end of his session for Björn to finish up half an hour later. This time it's because I am going to a conference on e-learning games and simulations in London.

For my trips to Reading, I got the office manager to get me a hire car. When I got to Reading, I discovered the road tax disc was out of date, and I ran the risk of having the car clamped and getting stranded. For the past two days, I have had the "privilege" of experience first hand, just how severe inefficiency can be in the service industry, as the office manager and I have both tried to get the matter resolved. Heaven help me: I have three trips down there again next week, for which I will again require a hire car, and we have a contract with this supplier. Oh joy.

I was hoping Torvy would be all enthusiasm at the prospect of high school, never having quite taken to primary, but sadly his response is a non-committal shrug. "Yeah, it was okay." Considering that they pull out all the stops to make these days as exciting as possible, this is not a hopeful start!

In the middle of this week of absentee Dad, over-busy mother and attention-grabbing-scheduled brother, Björn quietly went and won another 200m event, knocking .9s off his previous best time. I am so proud of him, I could fly. This was the district event this time. He has obviously suddenly figured it out, this sprinting lark, and he's loving it.

He's so self-sufficient, it's easy just to let him get on with it, and focus on the things that aren't going well, but that wouldn't be in his best interests. We have to discipline ourselves not just to focus where remedial action is required.

John should be back by the time the kids get back from school tomorrow, which they will enjoy.

A half empty house

2006-07-04T16:59:00.000Z

Björn and I are alone at home this evening. John is at a church leaders' conference in Brighton this week, while Torvy has gone off for two days on a school trip.

John seems to be enjoying his outing - he said the first seminar was really good. I really hope he is able to recharge his batteries. He has been spread thin lately, and has to go back to New York next week.

Torvy, on the other hand, just texted me to say he's bored out of his mind. After a series of the hottest, sunniest days this yeaar, we now have thunder storms, so he and his classmates are stuck indoors watching what he called a "crappy movie". I have yet to learn what movie earns this description. Sad - I hate thought they would be having an action packed couple of days.

Björn and I have just been out for a frescato, after which he bought himself two CDs on a sale. He is now ensconced in the study listening to it. I guess this is the sort of preparation one gets for the empty nest syndrome.

Torvy's year end concert

2006-07-03T10:28:00.000Z

Torvy is gearing up for the Y7 extravaganza - their big end of year, end of school concert before they leave for high school. He is playing bass guitar for a band consisting of two of his friends and the teacher on the drums. My son the boy band member! They're performing a few numbers, one of which they wrote themselves. Sadly John will be in New York (again) on The Night. Of course, with the child protection laws being what they are, I won't be able to video it, either!

And again...!

2006-07-03T10:12:00.000Z

Björn played cricket for the village (men's) team on Sunday, and helped them to victory. He didn't get to bat, but wasn't needed - they made 312 runs in their 40 overs! He took an easy catch at point to see off their No. 3 batsman, and then had a catch taken off his own bowling to see of the last man. They won by 150 or so runs. Björn's bowling figures were a little pricy (1 for 32 in 4 overs), but some of that was to do with the field placing - the batsman kept sweeping behind him to the leg side boundary, where there was a monster gap - but he didn't disgrace himself.

The other team members are so encouraging - it's really lovely to see. They talk him up with every ball, keeping him positive. His nickname with the team is Encore (since they pronounce his name to rhyme with yawn, rather than yearn, it's play on Björn again).

More sporting achievement for Björn

2006-06-30T23:17:00.000Z

Björn had sports day at school today. He competed in the javelin and 200m events. He was wearing his new javelin spikes for the first time and didn't throw as well as he has been lately - perhaps he still has to get used to them. Nevertheless he finished second in this event.

The event he didn't expect to do well in was the 200m. He was up against a county runner and has never excelled in the 200, but was the best in his hall in his year, so he went out to give it his best shot... and won! He beat the county runner going away, and finished in his best ever time of 26.6 seconds. We were delighted and John promptly set him the target of beating his own best times for the 200 and 400 by the time he's 18. He has already beaten my best time for the 100 and 200, as you would expect, but the 400 he is still outside my best - but then, that was my best event.

A quick update

2006-06-19T12:11:00.000Z

This is the sitrep for the four of us:

Karyn:
I have been offered a place on the MA Ed Studies course at Oxford Brookes starting in September this year. No doubt this will have huge impact on the family, and I will have to put a lot of things on hold while the course runs. I have submitted my application for indefinite leave to remain (often referred to as permanent residence) in the UK. This can take 6 months to process. See more under John, below. Once this is in place, I will set the wheels in motion to get a British passport, then travelling with me will be less of a trial for my family :-)

I am supposed to be running in an inter-corporate team race in London in July, but I haven't been able to train, since I am suffering from the usual upper respiratory complications of my allergies. The doctor insisted it was asthma, but every definition I can find on the matter says asthmatics struggle to breathe out. I can't breathe in. Anyway... whatever.

John:
Off to New York again today for the week. For this he (of course) needed his passport. Sadly, I had submitted this with my ILR application. Happily, the application form guidance listed a phone number for the emergency return of passports. Sadly, this only applies when the application is actually in the system, which can take weeks from the date of receipt (I kid you not). Oh, and the 6 months of processing time only starts when the application actually enters the system. In this age of frequent travel, we must surely not be the first to be in this situation. In the end, John had to go to the hub of bureaucracy and obtain his passport in person. Believe it or not, he had to produce evidence that he genuinely had to travel. Weird - it's his passport, why should he have to produce this evidence to get it back? I was advised that, in fact, it is not his passport, the passport is the property of the issuing country. Ri-ight. Let me rephrase my question: why does the British government need this evidence before returning a Swedish passport? Anyway - he duly got the passport back, and has been given a little sticker to put on it when he sends it back in again. No doubt we will have to go through this rigmarole every time he needs to travel, which might be several times before my application is processed. Sigh.

John and Björn have been playing cricket together for the local Sunday team. He just loves it. He always had this dream of playing for some social team with his boys. Since Torvy isn't particularly interested in sport, it'll have to be just with the one boy. Consequently, they don't play every week - that gives him time to do things with Torvy as well.

Björn:
Had to withdraw from the inter-county athletics champs, having injured his javelin-throwing shoulder days before the scheduled event. This took place during some small scale interschool event which he should have won easily. Poor lad.

At least there was compensation in that he was then able to attend a friend's birthday party which he had previously had to decline. The party involved a visit to the swimming pool. I assumed that this would be the indoor pool arrangement that is typical here, but, in fact they went to an outdoor pool and it was a glorious day. Of course, I had provided no sunscreen, and my son came home with a bright red back.

The requirements for this school year being over, his class starts working towards their GCSEs this week. Having had less than 30 mins homework per week up to now, he has not developed any concept of independent studies and the GCSEs have a huge coursework component for each subject that counts towards their final marks (I wish schools would teach learning skills! Then I wouldn't have to bust my butt so hard when people entered my sphere of the universe as adult learners).

Torvald:
Still sporting his long locks, Torvy is counting down the days to the end of middle school. The current count is 24 (school)days. He has just outgrown his third pair of school shoes this year and desperately needs bigger trousers. The problem is, the high school doesn't have a uniform and I'm not really keen to pay £50 for these items with so little of the school year left. I have browbeaten the school into letting him wear dark trainers to school, but they wouldn't budge on the trousers (I guess I can understand that), so I bought him one cheap pair that will have to get cycled through the wash really quickly each weekend.

On his very last day of Y7, I have promised to take him straight from school to the shopping centre to have his ear pierced. He has wanted to do this for the longest time, but we said not until he was 13. We brought the date forward by a few weeks to allow the ear to heal enough to remove the earring for sports when he starts high school in the first week of September. Since it costs £5 for one ear and £6 for two, I will have a second hole in one of my ears to use up the other half of the deal. No doubt I will pass out on the floor as I have done every time before...

He is practising very hard for the end of year concert, in which he is playing the bass guitar. He is dead keen to buy one of his own to add to his accoustic 6 string. He is hoping to get enough money for his 13th birthday to be able to do this. On Saturday we went looking at basses. They are quite pricy and, of course, he doesn't want one that's hugely heavy, being just a lickle lad.

Heather

2006-06-13T12:49:00.000Z

Yesterday I finally met the person I gave birth to over 22 years ago. She and her boyfriend are having an "excellent adventure" in Europe for 6 weeks, and she made a brief detour here in order to meet me. Fortunately her boyfriend has a brother living in London, so it was a most convenient arrangement.

I was really nervous in the lead up to the meeting. I was terrified I would burst into uncontrollable floods of tears or say something really stupid that would have some deep, longlasting impact on her psyche. From the outset, it has been my goal to focus on her needs in all my dealings with her. When people asked me, "What do you want out of the meeting?" My stock response was, "That's not important." Of course, my feelings are important to me, but I was determined that Heather should draw out of the situation what was important to her.

I had so misinterpreted the situation that it was almost funny. I thought she needed to meet me to satisfy herself that there were no gremlins floating about in her genes. That she needed to close that loop in her sense of self. What a lot of bunkum! She is completely her own person and just wanted to meet me to meet me. She needs absolutely nothing from me. We were talking about the approach her parents had taken to the subject of her adoption, and I asked if she had ever wondered why. Of course, I meant: wondered why I had chosen to give her up. I had to smile when her answer was purely from the perspective of why her parents had chosen to adopt. For her it's all about them. Which is exactly as it should be.

I suffered such a sense of loss when I left her behind in that hospital. I grieved for a long, long time. When Björn was born, seven and a half years later, and we took him home from the hospital, I burst into tears and wailed, "I get to take this one home!" All down the years, there was this sense of a piece being missing. But of course, the same was not true for her - she had a Mom (and a Dad, which I would not have been able to provide). When I think about it now, that should have been perfectly obvious. But at some subliminal level, I had somehow projected an answering longing onto her. On the one hand, my ego would have been stroked if she had said that that were the case, but the same drive that made me give her up in the first place found utter peace with the fact that she had not suffered any such sense of deprivation.

It was a surprisingly unemotional experience. For me, a missing piece of the jigsaw of my life slipped quietly into place without any fanfare. I was at last able to really let the baby Amy go. Amy was my daughter for 4 days. Heather has different parents and she is a credit to them.

So what's she like? She's vivacious, expressive, confident, intelligent, articulate, animated and has a dramatic flair. She can sing. We found that we have a lot in common - we share a passion for shoes, and are attracted to similar colours and cuts of clothing. Of course, all that can be put down to being female with similar colouring and build.

She looks like her biological father, although her colouring comes from my side of the gene pool. She has Kevin's long legs, and his feet and hands, to a T. Her hair is darker than mine - closer to my cousin Kath's colour, and she has a gorgeous complexion. And she's tall. Very tall. Hardly surprising - her biological father was 2m tall. In the attached picture (ignore the date stamp, I didn't reset it after we took the memory card out), we are standing on a level base wearing flat shoes. Bear in mind that I am 169cm (5'7" tall). She has my hourglass figure - lots up top, small waist and curvy hips. She grinds her teeth trying to find underwear in Australia, which sounds about as well provisioned as South Africa on that score.

We spent a very pleasant day together, and parted on good terms. We plan to keep in touch. For me, a little gap has been filled, a long-standing wound healed. For her, well, I don't know what she gained.

Björn at the County Champs

2006-06-10T15:35:00.000Z

Sadly we didn't get any stills - only videos which I can't upload to the blog (too stupid, I guess), but we have reason to be very proud of Björn today. He competed in the county champs and came second in the junior boys' javelin event. He gets to compete next week in the intercounties and may go on to the England champs if that goes well.

Just in case anyone else is trying to keep up with his love life, he and Gemma are a thing of the past, and he is now dating Becca. Becca, like both her predecessors, goes to our church and is blonde and pretty. Like Chrissy, she is a year ahead of him at school - that seems far more commonplace than in my day (said she, sounding like an old lady!).

Karyn's quest for a Master's degree

2006-06-09T16:55:00.000Z

Calloo Callay! It seems that, in spite of never having had the money to go to university, I have managed to piece together enough pieces of education over the years to equal a B Hons degree. After two years of closed doors, I have been unconditionally offered a place on a Master's degree in Educational Studies at Oxford Brookes.

We still have to decide whether I am going to accept - my company is only putting up half the money, so we have to find the other half while keeping up mortgage payments. I will also have to drive through to Oxford twice a week, which will add to the expense.

Whether or not I do this, the fact remains that I have I have been evaluated by an objective body and deemed equal to the task. I find this very validating. As an ambassador for informal education, I am ridiculously (and probably hypocritcally) pleased with this offer.

Race for Life 2006

2006-06-03T15:52:00.000Z

Well, it's over. This year, the Race for Life was moved from the flat course at Willen lake to the very hilly course full of bottlenecks at Campbell Park. This was the toughest of these I have ever done and my time showed that fact. The pictures show me about to cross the line and a few minutes later.

Having started far back in the field (mistake #1), it took me several minutes to cross the start line when I could at last start running. Then 100m from the start line, we hit our first bottleneck and had to slow down to a walk. Having passed that point, we started on a steep downhill... on a gravel path. The path remained narrow throughout and there were several more occasions when we had to slow down due to congestion. Towards the end there was the flip side of our steep downhill at the start, as we made our way back up to the helipad. It was the most gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky, and the chosen route was very scenic. However, I think if they're going to stick with this route next year, they're going to have to have more races with smaller numbers of entrants in each. There were occasions today when it was positively dangerous, particularly for inexperienced runners.

I finally managed to cross the finish line in 35:19 minutes. Not good. My time last year was 29:31 and I was hoping to equal that. Some of the people who sponsored me did so on a tiered basis - x amount for finishing y amount for finishing in under 30 minutes. Rats. Ah well, I did my bit and I'm aching in all sorts of unexpected places (now, now, none of that - I mean the arch of my right foot, and the ball of my left foot, for example).

Change of plans

2006-05-29T12:42:00.000Z

The family holiday plans this year have changed. We were to have worked around the fact that we were bringing Robyn over for a fortnight at the end of October by way of a 40th birthday present, but we recently heard that she will no longer be coming.

This was a huge disappointment, of course. It also means that John and I need to reorganise our leave arrangements. Sadly, it is too late for us to make any plans to go away over the summer - we're unlikely to get in anywhere we can afford at this stage. Of course, switching plans to the summer means that everything is charged at high season rates. The boys are going away on a massive youth camp called NewDay, so we'll try to work something around that.

Watch this space.

A new girl for Björn

2006-05-29T09:50:00.000Z

Björn has a new girlfriend called Gemma. I guess at their age heartbreak doesn't last long. For a few days, they kept their relationship a secret for all sorts of complicated teenage reasons. However, the secret is now out, so we can make the news known.

A while ago, I posted about a fancy dress party where he won the prize for the best costume. That was Gemma's 14th birthday party. She was dressed as a fairy and looked the part. She's a slim, pretty blonde with blue eyes. They've been friends for a while - hers is one of those homes where the kids automatically congregate, since it has a rumpus room, and Sunday afternoons are often spent around there.

Gemma attends our church and the youth, as well as being at Björn's school (not that that means a lot among over 2600 kids!). We have encountered her parents socially at parties and stuff, and her Dad moved the wall between the boys' rooms (here and here). So we know her and her family a bit.

Torvy's long hair

2006-05-12T16:34:00.000Z

I have mentioned n previous posts that Torvy is wearing his hair quite long these days. I thought I'd provide a picture.

As you can see, he still has a very elfin face with the cutest nose - puberty not yet having had its wicked way with it. Why is it that we almost all start out with gorgeous little buttons and then along comes puberty and wham! Both boys and girls alike. Torvy's is so little that the family joke is that it's just a "no", since it isn't big enough to carry the full name. However, I see signs of my Dad's nose lurking within. I just hope I'm wrong - it wasn't his best feature!

District athletics championships

2006-05-12T16:17:00.000Z

On Wednesday, Björn competed in the district athletics championships in the javelin event. While waiting for his event, he was mucking about at the high jump. Now he doesn't have the length of leg for this event and has never had any training or experience. Of course, this hindered him not at all. The upshot of this was that he encountered the peg that holds the crossbar in place and wound up with a gash down the middle of his left calf - about 12cm long, although not terribly deep. Bear in mind that this was before his own event.

He did very badly on the first two attempts, due to the pain and impaired function of his left leg. On the third attempt, he tried to ignore the pain and gave it all he had. The result was a throw 5m short of his pb (personal best), but this was still enough to secure him second place. Some comfort could be drawn from the fact that the kid who won threw his own pb, which was a good 4m better than Björn's. Nevertheless, he was competing a year above his own age group. This kid has previously competed for Southern Counties, so he's pretty darn good.

Since neither John nor I have any experience with this event, we are unable to say whether the local standard is any good. But the actual distances involved in this little tale were:
Björn's pb: 36m, Björn's best throw on Wed: 31m, winning throw on the day 40m.

:-(((

2006-05-01T10:35:00.000Z

Last night, Björn and Chrissy broke up. He's putting a brave face on it, but they've been going out for 8 months, which is a fair time for kids of their age, so it isn't easy.

John and I saw the writing on the wall a while ago. It had reached the point where the relationship seemed to be about the relationship. Instead of talking about things they had done or wanted to do, movies they had seen, digital games they had played, they seemed to be stuck in a destructive cycle of talking about their relationship. Again and again they went back over old ground - worrying at the wound on the time Chrissy strayed a little. Of course, no wound was ever going to heal under those circumstances.

It's best that they should move on. Of course, it's going to be a little uncomfortable at church and youth for a while, but this can't be avoided and they're not the first to go through it.

It's not easy being a parent under these circumstances - we just have to provide him with a safe environment in which to be vulnerable for a while.

Torvy leads the squad

2006-04-25T19:02:00.000Z

This year, Torvy has joined the environmental squad at school, and was recently made a team leader. These kids work together with the school groundsman to improve the environment at the school. From picking up litter to cutting back brambles, from weeding and planting flowerbeds to breaking down and disposing of old equipment. The difference they have made to the school grounds even made it into the local paper. He's very proud of his achievements and has stuck with it when many of the original members dropped out because it was such hard work.

Looks like we have a budding environmentalist in the family!

The cricket season

2006-04-25T18:15:00.000Z

We recently took a little jaunt to our local sports and social club. This is situated conveniently close to our house. They have a colts' cricket team, which Björn is keen to join. They also have Sunday matches, where they like to allow the 14+ year old boys to have the opportunity to play a few games for the men's team. There is event he chance that John might have a game or two. It has long been a dream of his to play in a village cricket team together with his sons. Unfortunately for that dream, the younger son is not really interested in cricket. He's not the most sporty boy, our Torvy, but that's okay - he has other interests, which I will post about next.

Another milestone...

2006-04-16T17:48:00.000Z

Yesterday, I was giving Björn a hug when he suddenly blurted, "I'm taller than you!" It's been a close thing for some time now, so we decided to check and, sure enough - he is taller than me. Only by about half a centimetre, but he is, indeed, officially the second tallest member of the family.

He has less than an inch to go before he overtakes John, and his hands and feet are both bigger, so it should only be a matter of time (and, the way things are going, not too much of that, either!) .

Torvy is now tall enough that, when we stand toe to toe, I can kiss his forehead without tilting my head. It seems like only yesterday that I was saying that about Björn.

Not such good news from Milton Keynes

2006-04-11T18:27:00.000Z

Follow this link to see the news about the accident in MK today - scaffolding collapsed on a hotel building site. This happened no more than a mile from our house - we could see the emergency helicopters above the scene. It's a miracle their weren't more casualties when you see the extent of the damage.

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A fairytale party

2006-04-08T15:14:00.000Z

Björn was invited to a friend's party last night, and everyone had to dress as characters from fairytales. Björn was planning to go as a woodcutter type character of the sort from Red Riding Hood or a la Jack when he chopped down the beanstalk.

We went to a costume hire store and they had several suitable outfits. He tried on a few and settled on this one.

They had an axe as well, which was great. The trousers ended a few inches above the ankle. I suggested that he wear long socks with heavy workman style boots (his father's Cats for example). Most appropriate for a woodcutter. Then Björn spotted The Boots. Oh dear. They were more suited to a pirate than a woodcutter, so I suggested he go as one of those instead, but he wanted that axe. In the end, his ensemble was a bit weird, but he looked good, as you can see, and he won the prize for best costume.

Phew!

2006-03-31T15:43:00.000Z

I have just dropped the boys off at the church. They are due to leave on a coach in a short while for youth weekend away. We decided to make best use of the opportunity and have booked a weekend ourselves, together with another couple. Three of their children are also going to the youth camp, while the fourth has been packed off to friends for the weekend.

We had a planning session a few nights ago, where it was decided that the only meal we will cook over the weekend will be brunch tomorrow. Everything else will either be ordered in or eaten out. No-one is under any pressure to be sociable, presentable or even awake!

We have no idea what sort of things there are to see and do in the area and we don't care, because we have no plans to see or do any of them. This is a weekend for slippers and feet on the coffee table.

We might play board games. We might watch the Eurovision song contest. We will definitely drink wine.

Torvy's street scene

2006-03-28T19:15:00.000Z

As promised, here is the street scene. It's a sort of pen and wash effect.

Et voila!

2006-03-26T17:35:00.000Z

Here is the finished result of the boys' rooms. I still have to make new curtains for Torvy's room and I think both the boys could do with new lampshades. Other than that, though, we're done! Wahey!

Torvy's is in shades of blues and turquoise. That's Leroy, his puppet on his pillow.

Björn's is the blues and reds - red is his favourite colour.

Torvald's progress

2006-03-24T10:45:00.000Z

Yesterday, I had to attend a parents' meeting with Torvy's teachers Mrs Pellant and Mrs Moore (who share the role on a 3:2 days per week basis). Let me just say from the outset that it was the most positive experience I have ever had of a parents' meeting in a combined total of 16 child-years.

The two teachers are obviously very fond of him as a person, which makes a huge difference. We started off talking about art, since I had just exercised my right to buy one of his pictures, ready framed for the purpose (this is a WSA/PTA fund raising initiative which works very well). We have seen his work come on in leaps and bounds this year, and Mrs Moore said he was very talented. She showed me some of his other work and his self-portrait in the style of Modigliani blew me away.

We talked about his other subjects, too, but he is doing very well across the board and the teachers were far more interested in telling me about him as a person. Apparently he is very focused and gives every task his all... most of the time. But with much affection they shared how he is "still a little boy" sometimes, with lots of silliness in evidence. They were quick to assure me that they thought that this was exactly as it should be. They were positively giggling as they told me about the antics he and his equally silly friend Sam get up to, and his instant sheepish contrition when he gets caught.

His self assessment for French was very high, which surprised the teachers somewhat - of course, it isn't the English way to blow one's own trumpet, but we have not raised our children to display false modesty. However, they said he was bang on target and that his French was indeed "very good" across the board as he had estimated. I was pleased with this - Torvy has not previously shown any flair for languages.

They expressed the opinion that he has a talent for music. This is borne out by his guitar teacher who told him on Tuesday that he is a "great guitarist". Whoa!

I came away the proud owner of a gorgeous picture, which will go up on the wall at home, and walking on a pink cloud of parental smugness. As parents, we so often hear about where our children fall short of the mark and where they need extra help. We often focus our own attention on their faults and flaws, forgetting to commend them for their successes. Last night it gave me great pleasure to "big him up" in his hearing at our cell group meeting.

Parenting is hard work, but occasions like this make it sooo worthwhile!

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The boys' rooms

2006-03-13T10:46:00.000Z

We have recently had the wall between the boys' rooms moved. Torvy's room was too small to be used as a bedroom, so they had both been sleeping in Björn's room, while their wardrobes were in Torvy's. We only had the wall moved about 30cm or so, but it has made all the difference. Torvy's room, while still small, is live-able, and Björn still has enough room. We will have to do clever things with shelves to maximise the use of the space.

For those who think such a minor move extravagant - remember that English interiors are just hollow stud walls - the whole process took 4 days, two of which were spent plastering. Besides, what the boys have gained in terms of privacy and identity has been more than worth it.

We spent the weekend painting, and I, for one, am stiff in every muscle! Torvy's room needed to have the celing painted as well as the walls. It will also have to be recarpeted at some point, but that will have to wait for a while. Björn's room only needed to have the walls repainted. We got two coats on Torvy's ceiling and one on all four walls. We got two coats on two of Björn's walls and will do the other two next weekend. the replastered wall may need another coat as well.

They had the same basic colour - a light turquoise, but I will be doing some designs on their walls for individuality. They got to choose the colours and approve the designs for those. Björn will have three striped rectangles using blues and reds on one wall. Torvy will have a dark blue painted border at dado rail height with vertical stripes in shades of blue and turquoise below and the plain colour above. Both of them will have box shelves painted in co-ordinating colours, and hooks on which to hang their guitars within easy reach above their beds.

It should look good when we're done, but it's going to be a lot of work. I'm determined to do it as well as my limited talent will allow - it's the first time they have ever had a say in how their decor looks. They were too small in Impala Road and we've lived in rented houses since then. They are both developing such a strong sense of their own identity at the moment, and it's wonderful that they are able to reflect that within their own space. And, of course, there is nothing to beat the significance of a closed door!

Of course, I've now been bitten by the painting bug and want to do the lounge, our room...

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Redecorating

Gunnel's funeral

2006-03-01T12:24:00.000Z

We have just returned from a whirlwind trip to Sweden for Gunnel's funeral. We left on Monday evening, arriving in Gothenburg at about 9pm, to be collected by John's cousin Magnus. He drove us to his house, which is conveniently nearby.

What a lovely home he and Sofie have made for themselves. Sofie showed me the photographs of the work in progress and they have put in a lot of effort. There is still more work to come, as they attend to the rest of the house, but what they have done is little short of remarkable. They obviously both have an eye for interior decor. As with so many Scandinavian homes, the whole approach is uncluttered and minimalist. Very restful.

Calle (Kalle?), their little boy, is the image of Sofie in so many ways. Last time John saw him (which was when he went over for Lennart's funeral) he was speaking an unintelligible dialect all his own. This time (a scant few months later) he spoke very intelligible Swedish. He has the typical fine white hair and piercing blue eyes of so many Scandinavian children, and his mother's dainty little upturned nose and small build makes for a most elfin child.

We spent a very pleasant evening with them. The next day (yesterday) was the funeral itself. The Swedes (or perhaps just the Lutherans) are quite formal in their observance, so it was very much a case of formal, black clothes. The service was also formal and structured, but it was evident that the preacher was burying a friend. She spoke about Gunnel (if my poor Swedish didn't deceive me) in terms that only a friend could achieve. There is a point in the service where each row of mourners goes up to pay respects, laying flowers on the coffin before giving a little bow and returning to their seats. This was very moving and I saw the preacher wipe a few tears away, herself. I hadn't expected to shed any tears myself, but watching Gunnel's older grandsons weep unashamedly with little regard for their street cred as handsome teenagers, I was very moved.

Our own boys were remarkably well behaved throughout the whole service, considering they understood not a word of the proceedings. They solemly shook hands with everyone and greeted them in Swedish, giving their names as they did so. They gave no indication that they were bored, although they must have been, and they even sang along to the psalms, pronouncing the words as best they could, even though they didn't understand them (which is pretty much what I was doing, I guess).

After the service, lunch was served in the hall, which Gunnel's son-in-law prepared. This was a chance for people to catch up and reminisce. Of course, John encountered many cousins he hadn't seen in an age, if ever, and met the woman who was his Mom's best friend in childhood.

We received many invitations to visit, which we will gladly accept - our children need more input from this side of their heritage. We hope to visit John's second cousin Sven in Stockholm - I have long wanted to visit gamlastan (the old city) and this looks like being our chance to do this. Sven took to Torvy and was very good with him. Björn was a little more aloof, nursing an injured heart (he is drafting a post on this at present).

Once everyone had left and the hall was cleared, we went back to Magnus' house. This is perhaps the time to do the English thing and talk about the weather - albeit with good reason. When we arrived in Sweden, there was some snow cover on the ground. Yesterday morning, we awoke to find a little more, but then the heavens opened and it really came down. With strong winds whipping it into little flurries. This kept up throughout the service and the lunch and, by the time we left, there was a lot of snow about the place. The boys were thrilled and took the opportunity to play in the snow - riding down the slope on snow racers.

In the afternoon we heard that the airport was closed. We decided to dash off and buy an extra day's clothing since we had travelled so light, we were unprepared. While on this mission, we found Björn a new pair of ice skates for an excellent price. Armed with the skates and the clothes, we took the Bjureblads to an Indian restaurant for an early dinner.

By now, we were getting indecisive information about whether the airport would re-open, so we went there, just in case. The flight did, in fact take off - it was the only one to do so out of Gothenburg City airport yesterday, and it was the most rushed take-off I've ever known. We were almost herded in and thrown into the sky before the freshly ploughed runway could be covered again.

We got back very late last night (early this morning), so the boys are taking the day off to recuperate. I nearly did the same myself, but thought better of it. That's twice in quick succession that John has paid a flying visit to Magnus' house - both times to attend the funeral of one of Magnus' parents. We have got to visit again under more leisurely, less unhappy circumstances!

Tags:

a very upsetting event

2006-02-27T11:00:00.000Z

This blog was written by me-Björn,
my intention is for only my family members to read it but i guess there is no way of preventing
others from reading it too.

Tomorrow(28/2/06) will be six month anniversary with my beautiful girlfriend Chrissy. She
is the girl that I would most like to spend the rest of my life with. I gave her my heart and the
rest of my life, however, she seems not to have realised this. On Friday 24 Feb (3 days ago)
a boy from Chrissy's school began flirting with her over the internet. Without realising what she
was doing Chrissy began to do the same back and then moved on to texting. On sunday Chrissy told me at the beginning of the church meeting that she needed to tell me something, I did not think anything of this and carried on with the worship. Chrissy then showed one of her friends
a picture on her mobile and when she went to put it away I asked if I could mess around with her phone, she said yes and I then continued to play a game on the phone.
It was then that I decided to see how many texts I had sent Chrissy but found a name a did not recognise amongst my texts. I thought nothing of this and decided to check the outbox, there were only 5 messages in this and so I decided to look at these. Apparently I turned pale immediately, Chrissy's phone is one that saves messages meaning you have to personally delete them to remove them. The messages were to the name I did not recognise.

I tapped Chrissy on the shoulder to ask her what it was, she too turned pale, she then put the phone in her pocket and put her face in her hands. At this I walked away and out of the hall,
I was furious, hurt and confused. It felt as though she had thrown everything I had given her over the past six months, including my heart, into the sea. Chrissy ran out of the other exit crying. My dad then took me outside for a walk and advised me in what course to take. I went back and took Chrissy outside to ask her why and to find out what she had done with him so far.

We had a conversation in which I found out that she had been overwhelmed by this boy who had said that he was madly in love with her and that she had been confused. I had no idea how many times a person could say sorry till then, I accepted the apologies and told her that I still wanted to be with her and would always love her no matter what(much to her great surprise as she had expected me to dump her then and there).

I had forgotten how long a person could cry for, it turns out its a long time, and I ended up crying myself to sleep that evening. It is true that it will be incredibly hard to regain the trust that she once had and I have reassured her that if anything like this ever happens again that that it will definitely be over because if she can still love other people after a 6 month relationship then I am not the right person for her and she deserves only the best, even if it means that she will not be mine.

I have not written this to embarass or chastise Chrissy but for my family to know the situation,
I still love her and I have forgiven her so I will not hear a word against her. She was, is and always will be my one true love.

Another tumble

2006-02-20T16:45:00.000Z

John has racked up another injury at ice hockey. He got knocked over last night by someone who was racing him for the puck. He now sports a huge lump on his left hip for his trouble. I shall forebear to put a picture up on this site - largely because I suspect I wouldn't get his permission! Perhaps watching Sweden beating USA at ice hockey yesterday afternoon affected his play...

Unlikely sources

2006-02-06T09:39:00.000Z

My last post gives some insight into how cheerful (or not) I am feeling this morning. However, this post about Bono's sermon to America's religious (and otherwise?) leaders, gives a little lift. The blog itself is worth reading.

It comes hot on the heels of a most uplifting episode of Songs of Praise last night, hosted by Jonathan Edwards and celebrating some of the UK's unsung heroes.

National "pull a sickie" day

2006-02-06T09:20:00.000Z

Apparently today glories in this rather dubious name, or so I learned when one of my colleagues arrived in the office. We duly established that, of the 5 of us in the room, four had given passing thought to doing just that.

Björn claims to have been throwing up and he made a bid for a day off today. Whether he was sincere or not, I am sad to say I have no idea - he is, after all a 14 year old boy!

His illness, whether real or feigned, coupled with an infected wound of my own (I recently had a growth removed in a rather tricky position where my clothes keep rubbing on the site, preventing healing), certainly had me weighing up the idea of a day in bed.

In the end, I packed us both off to a day's grind. I'm regretting it already. My wound is irritating the living daylights out of me, and I'm struggling to stay awake. It must be Monday!

A sad loss

2006-02-06T09:13:00.000Z

John's aunt Gunnel died last week. Apparently, her heart just gave out. She had been ill for some time with some form of sclerosis - contracted, if I understood her Swedish correctly, from a tick bite. On top of that, she had developed an infection, for which she was being medicated. The combination of all these things appears to have been more than her heart could take and she died in her sleep.

She was just getting used to living alone after the death of her husband in the second half of last year. Unlike John's Mom, she was obviously not destined for many years' widowhood. John attended his uncle Lennart's funeral last year, but we would like to go to Gunnel's as a family, if we can afford the tickets. John's cousin has invited us to stay at his house. Very generous considering that he has just lost his remaining parent.

2006 gets underway

2006-01-11T18:59:00.000Z

2006 is now well and truly underway. John has been to South Africa and returned and now he's in New York. It will come as no surprise to those who know him to hear that he went straight from the airport to the office on his return from SA. When he got back from work that evening, he pretty much unpacked and repacked for his trip to NY, leaving the house at 5am to make his flight. He gets back on Friday night and will no doubt need the weekend to recover.

I'll leave it to him to tell you about his time in SA himself.

At the end of the month, our cell group is multiplying and John and I will be leading the new group. We're a bit nervous about it, having had it relatively easy as assistant leaders for some time. It's also going to mean quite a time commitment for us, and we're already pretty busy people, but it needs to be done. The church continues to grow. When we joined, we could fit into the building relatively comfortably. Since then, we have planted out two new churches in other parts of the town and we have to meet in the local high school sports hall because our building in New Bradwell is too small. Last week we had a meeting in New Bradwell and even with the Sunday School, the creche and the younger teens out of the room it was a squeeze.

A small sample

2005-12-28T18:03:00.000Z

A few candid shots taken over the festive season. As you can see, Dad's getting old, Mom's hit the bottle, Björn eats too much and Torvy's a daydreamer... or so this random sample would have you believe. Actually, only one those statements is true, and I'll leave you to figure out which one it is.

Snow!

2005-12-27T17:56:00.000Z

Well, it wasn't in time for a white Christmas, and there was the merest sprinkle, but we woke to find it snowing this morning.

John's sprain

2005-12-22T19:07:00.000Z

On Sunday night, John landed awkwardly on his right foot at ice hockey and sprained his ankle. Have a look for yourself.

Party season

2005-12-15T16:37:00.000Z

It's the time of the year for parties, isn't it?

First John had his company do, which was kind of a cocktail evening. Their do isn't restricted just to staff, however, so they had a quite a crowd. He seems to have enjoyed it. Of course, he should be posting info about that!

Then came the church youth do. They decided to have a formal ball, which gave the kids a rare opportunity to dress up. Sadly, Torvy decided not to go - he didn't want to be a wallflower and didn't have the self-belief that that wouldn't happen if he went without a partner. Of course, the fact that his brother had a partner didn't help! We bought Björn a suit, which turned out cheaper than hiring one, and will give Torvy some wear when Björn outgrows it.

Chrissy wore a light cornflower blue dress that offset her eyes and looked lovely. They made a handsome couple, as you can see.

Last night was my company do - we went out for dinner at a nearby restaurant. The restaurant was quite small and we took over more than half of it. We were a rather festive crowd, but nobody became obnoxious or overbearing, so I hope the few other patrons were still able to enjoy their night out. The food was fantastic. At least half of us ordered steak ranging from well-done to rare and each one was prepared exactly as ordered. There were loads of delicious veggies, too, which counts for a lot with me.

On Monday, Torvy has a Christmas party at school. They get to go to school in mufti (always a plus) and each person takes in some predetermined eats, drinks and decorations. Great fun.

Christmas is coming... sigh

2005-12-04T17:25:00.000Z

I don't like December much!

Living in the UK, it means living the life of a mole. Setting off for work before sunrise and returning after sunset, so you never see the light of day. The grey skies threaten snow but never produce it - just more rain.

Then there's the little matter of my birthday, followed a week later by Christmas, and another week later by New Year. These are times to be surrounded by friends and family, and just serve to remind how desperately far we are from both these groups of people.

Having no extended family in the UK makes for a rather lonely Christmas. This is exacerbated this year by the fact that my entire maternal family will be together for Christmas - only I will be missing. Self-pitying sigh.

As a child, I loved the full semi-English hot lunch we had at Christmas time. I loved the atmosphere of my Gran, my Mom and my aunt dealing with the stress by clowning around in the kitchen. I loved being trusted to decorate the table for the meal.

Then I grew up.

When it was my turn to lay on the Christmas meal in 35 degree South African heat, I decided that the European traditions were all very well for Europe, but were totally unsuited to the southern hemisphere. I visted the Woolworths (read Marks & Spencer) food hall and stocked up on supplies of posh cold meats and salads which I artfully arranged on a table covered in tin foil. That worked just fine.

Then we moved to the UK.

Now I am in sole charge on laying on the Christmas meal, and it needs to be a hot one. I am not a slave to tradition for the sake of it, and tend to avoid turkey in favour of meats we prefer. However, the hours spent in the kitchen are lonely indeed with no recourse to my own mother and sister to help me deal with the stress by clowning around.

Having spent all my Christmases in South Africa surrounded by extended family (whether my own or John's), our pile of presents-for-four seems rather pathetic by comparison and only serves as a reminder of how far from home we are.

For the last few years, we have replaced the tree with a manger to refocus our attention on the "reason for the season".

We try to make the celebrations as merry as possible, because these are our boys' memories in the making. If I'm not careful, they will take the first opportunity to escape the doom and gloom of the "festive" season in our house. That would be disastrous... for us, anyway.

John is my rock at this time, because this is not new territory to him. All the years he lived in South Africa, they were in the position our boys are in now, with no aunts, uncles and cousins to hand. Perhaps this is why they give each other so many gifts.

If I don't shake up my ideas, Christmas will be upon us and I will have done nothing to prepare for it. So this is me, taking myself in hand and squaring my shoulders. I hereby commit to getting my head out of the sand, pulling my finger out of wherever it is that fingers need to pulled out of and giving some attention to the matter of Christmas for my family.

God bless us, every one.

eBay

2005-12-04T17:20:00.000Z

I have recently made my first purchases from eBay. I signed us up some time ago, when we had stuff to sell, and we never got as far as advertising it. Now that I've seen how easy it is, I think we should give it a go. I managed to find two pairs of jeans for Björn at rock bottom prices. A pair of Levi 501 and a pair of Alexander McQueens.

I also bought myself a pair of trousers (my first purchase and the only disappointment - the quality was poor, and they didn't fit) and a lovely skirt.

The problem is that it's quite addictive. While you're checking on your existing bids, it's all too easy to have a look at what else you might bid on!

And you can buy ab-so-lute-ly anything! If you're bidding on a high end item, I reckon you need to be very careful, but I haven't been that adventurous, yet.

Björn's first date

2005-11-10T23:40:00.000Z

On Tuesday night, Björn and Chrissy went to the movies together. Just the two of them. In spite of the ribald remarks from some of my colleagues, I knew I could trust the pair of them to be sensible. Had it been any other girl, I might have been less comfortable about allowing my son of only-just-fourteen to go out on a date without a group of friends in attendance to act as a buffer.

Much to Torvald's amusement (and Björn's puzzlement), my heart was very full after dropping Björn off at the cinema. I had to drive Chrissy home afterward - she lives several miles outside of town - and when Björn walked her to the front door, it really hit home that we had passed another milestone and that my son was becoming a man in whose life my role is steadily diminishing. I find that, while I am proud of the emerging man and reluctant to jeopardise his development, I am nevertheless grieving for the loss of what was.

Mothers of sons know that the growing apart is of necessity a one-way process. Daughters pull away as teenagers and then boomerang back when they're all done being rebellious and contrary. Not so with sons. The distance just keeps widening.

How can I explain this? I still get to kiss him goodbye every morning and goodnight every night. I still pray with him at bedtime. I still sit opposite him at the dinner table every evening and grumble about the state of his room (almost) every day. I still iron his clothes (he does the laundry himself) and harangue him to put his clean washing away. I still remind him to do his homework (I even help occasionally) and practise on his guitar. I still impose limits on the amount of time he spends on the computer/playstation/telly. He still spends the same number of hours a day under my roof and in my direct and indirect care.

Yet I miss him. I miss the little boy he used to be. I love this young man - don't get me wrong - but I miss being needed. I know, I know - it's all me me me, but it doesn't hurt any the less for it. I'll get over it, but right now, I'm having a little wallow. So there.

The house purchase

2005-10-25T04:21:00.000Z

Wahey! We are now the proud owners of a little house in New Bradwell. It is rather little, but it's ours. The downside is that we have to pay rent on our previous place until 6 November, so we have an overlap and certainly no money to meet it. Overdraft, anyone?

On 8 October (yes - Björn's birthday), we moved the furniture with the aid of members of our church cell group and a hired van. That night was the first night we slept there. We have since unpacked almost everything - just the conservatory and the thrid bedroom need work at this stage. It'll have to wait a little, though! The past two weekends have been spent doing house-things, and we have promised the boys that this weekend will be filled with family things. We do need to get them each gloves and things - the clocks are going back on Sunday (23 october) - always a sign that the morning journey to school is going to be cold - but apart from that, it's going to be swimming and badminton and movies and stuff. Bring it on!

Of course, Sod's Law being what it is, the microwave has packed up, as has Björn's bike - right now when we can least afford it. Oh, well... Björn is taking John's bike to and from school, while John is using Karyn's to get to the station and back (he is less worried about being seen on a "girl's" bike!). As to the microwave, we have just had to remember how to get by without it for now.

Torvald's news

2005-10-21T21:06:00.000Z

Torvy is now 12 years old and is in Year 7 at school. This is the first year of Key Stage 3. He did well in his SATs exams last year scoring a level 5 for maths and science and a level 4 for English. We were surprised and disappointed in this last result, but all the papers in the school had been sent back for remarking, so we have just decided to shrug it off. Having achieved the 5 for maths, Torvy cares little about anything else - that was his big bugbear!

Now that we are in the new house, Torvy has to take a bus to school. For a little guy who struggles with change, this was an enormous undertaking, but he has coped beautifully with the situation. Just this very day, we heard from his teacher that he is a pleasure to teach - no trouble at all and great to have in the class. This is the sort of news every parent wants to hear! Way to go, Torvy!

Torvy is not a very sporty boy, but he takes part when he gets the opportunity. He does football after school, but didn't make the team. He isn’t particularly driven or competitive, so we're just happy that he takes part.

His feet are now larger than his Mom's, and he is growing fast, but he still has a little boy's face. He hasn't hit the growth spurt stage that his older brother has reached, so the height gap between the two boys has widened over the past year. It remains to be seen what happens when he hits his teens.

Like Björn, he is also taking guitar lessons, but he preferred an accoustic guitar, so we bought him one of those. He practises a bit more than Björn, but still not often enough. We are really hoping that music will turn out to be his passion. He has never yet found something that ignites him. This makes it tough for him in a family with so many passions, pastimes and hobbies.

John's work news

2005-10-21T21:00:00.000Z

John is still plodding on at Marchpole. His boss (the FD) left in the last few days, things having finally reached an impasse between him and the others on the board.

When he called John in to let him know that he was leaving (which he did within hours of the conversation), he told him that he had never known an IT department to be run so slickly. I have always known that John runs a tight ship, and this was vindication indeed. If only he bottle that and produce it as evidence in an interview... but sadly, it's a little hard to prove.

He still sends in applications to posts nearer home, but age-ism is alive and well in the UK. If you are over 40 in IT, you'd best hang onto the job you've got, because a new one isn't likely to be forthcoming.

Of course, his ideal would be to be offered a job in San Francisco. We fell head over heels in love with the place when we were there last summer, much to my surprise - I had always been completely sure that America wouldn't appeal to me in the slightest.

Karyn's work news

2005-10-21T20:55:00.000Z

For those who don't know, I work as a learning designer for a company called Capita in the Learning and Development division.

Capita is a FTSE100 company, and this particular division was listed as one of the top 100 companies in the UK to work for last year, so I sat up and paid attention when the offer came through.

I was sorry to leave Christie + Co slap bang in the meaty part of the Sigma project, where we were building up to the roll-out of a new bespoke central system, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn more about instructional design and to try my hand at "proper" e-learning.

I can honestly say that I have already learnt a huge amount and look forward learning more.

My office is in Bedford, although many members of the team work remotely from home, and that option is available to me going forward. I might explore it once I have got a handle on things. Bedford is not far from MK - only 18 miles or so, but the morning traffic means it can take 50 minutes to an hour. Bleagh! I am looking into options like cycling and stuff, but the English weather is not conducive!

Björn's news

2005-10-20T18:47:00.000Z

This young man is blossoming nowadays. He is 14 now, almost as tall as I am and his face is changing as the bones grow and become more masculine. His nose has become very much like my Mom's, which is a surprise, since it showed no sign of doing so until very recently. He officially has the biggest feet in the family, having now outstripped his Dad on that score. We bought him a pair of football boots recently, and they were size 9 (UK).

He is now in his second year of high school, which he thoroughly enjoys. He has been afforded the opportunity to play a great many sports he hadn't previously tried and has been game for all of them. Whenever a competitor is needed for his hall team to compete against the other halls, his hand goes up - even when he hasn't really played the sport before. As a result, he has swum, played tennis, badminton, cricket, rugby, basketball, football (soccer), rounders, thrown a javelin, run, jumped (high, long and triple) and so the list goes on. He is the top javelin thrower in his age group at school (and considering that there are over 2500 kids in the school, that's some achievement) and came third in the regional competition. He laps it up.

Academically, he is cruising at the moment. He is the top science student in his class by a long shot. He is among the top few for a few other subjects as well, including French, where he does a fine approximation of a French accent. I have concerns about the lack of homework he seems to receive, but he says he completes it at school and all his teachers are happy with the promptness of his completed work, so one assumes he's telling the truth on that score, but after the warning we got from the head teacher about the workload this year, I was expecting more.

Discipline in the school is lax and teachers are powerless in this country to compel the children to comply. If a child is disruptive in class and the teacher sends them out of the room, they might refuse to leave, and then the teacher is sunk. This disrupts the lesson for the rest of the class. This is particularly the case in the performing arts subjects. Both those teachers tell me he is one of the few kids who does as he is asked, but those few are regularly disappointed as the rest of the class brings the lesson to a grinding halt.

Björn recently started guitar lessons and we bought him an electric guitar. Predictably he needs to be nagged to practise, but he seems to be making fair progress.

He currently has a girlfriend called Chrissy who attends our church. She is a little older than he is - a year ahead at school. A sweet girl and it doesn't hurt that she is drop dead gorgeous to boot!