Mumble’s Blog

Today was the Knoxies turn to do their Christmas show - the eldest plays the violin, and this year was my year to go and watch him. Yippee! Squeals of delight as I race out of the house handing over the squabbling middlies and wailing baby - aah! Peace at last thinks I, settling down to enjoy a quiet rendition of Green Hills and Highland Cathedral by the Knox Pipe band. “That’ll toughen up your ears for the rest of the concert!” whispers my neighbour.

Our boy was in the orchestra (they’re good!) - I did ask him afterwards why his bow went down when everyone else’s went up - which isn’t too visible - and up when everyone elses went down, which is. “That” says he “was a conscious decision.” To stick out like a windmill? No; that is apparently a side effect - why change strings when you have four fingers? But then why tax your finger when you have four strings?

It is lovely to see them all playing though. Also really good to get to go to an event at the Knox - with the middlies you seem to get more of an idea of what it’s like at school, I end up popping in a fair bit about something or other, and they tell you a bit too. You also get to talk to the other parents most days dropping them off. And you generally get all the notes, so you find out about the things you can get involved with; at the slightest whiff of us being invited to approach the school our eldest will generally eat the evidence. So the Knox is more of a mystery box - in he goes at one end of the day, out he comes at the other. The only times I usually get to find out anything about what is going on is when it involves money. The bill this week has been something like:

Folk Music - boy can’t remember what it is but would like to go £6.00
Trip to ITALY!! - to play basketball - £staggering.
Ian Rankin - he won a prize to go and see the author (I’m not boasting here - he said everyone that entered won). Did he tell us there was a competition? No. That he’d entered it? No. That he’d won it? No. We only hear about it because he needs £2.50 for the bus.

What else has he been doing in there? Who knows?

Oh, and of course, Christmas Concert, £4. Well worth it.

Anti-bullying week has now been and gone.

Am I alone in feeling nervous in seeing posters up with ‘Hands are for helping not hitting’ and ‘Teeth are for smiling not biting’ - do they need telling in our school? Blimey, maybe they do. Maybe without those posters to remind them the playground would descend into biting hitting frenzy. This anti-bullying week was notable as the first time my younger boy has evidenced any sign of being the possible target of an incident (admittedly minor!) though he wasn’t sure if it was intended or not. He came home with his hair full of blu-tak, which he said was put in there by a classmate. He said it was easy to see when he hit you but not so obvious if he took the blu-tak tack.

Also, he says, the clampdown on fighting has indeed come. It is so comprehensive that even pretend weaponry has been banned. Though not, he hastens to add, all pretend weaponry. Not allowed are; pretend swords, pretend daggers, pretend halberds, pretend axes (if handheld). You are still allowed pretend guns, pretend spears, pretend bows and arrows, and pretend axes (thrown). He thinks you should be allowed pretend halberds as long as you throw them. But you aren’t. How the playground superviser can tell what sort of weapon you are pretending to be holding I don’t know. But then she is very experienced. I wouldn’t put it past her. Apparently one of the boys was going in right to the hilt, as it were, with a pretend sword, having obviously not see Poster No. 1. Hence the ban. Without thinking I asked our boy, what about pretend pretend swords? It took him a while to work it out, but I could see a bad light in his eye when he did. I think he may be armed and dangerous tomorrow. I just hope the Blu-tak Attacker has got his wits about him.

I’ve just hot-footed it back from the Infants Christmas show - Whoops-a-daisy Angel. My friend had sat behind a small lady in the third row, and luckily kept me a seat as I was pretty much the last in having had a last minute dash home. Then just as it started, the small lady got up and swapped seats with a HUGE bloke, who was not only, as I said, HUGE, but also sporting a jacket with kind of - well what it reminded me of is this gecko thing in The Future is Wild which runs along in the desert catching flies in a very well developed ruff. After a bit of a whispered discussion, we decided one of us should ask him to take it off - me. I think I did manage this without being rude, though not without my friend starting to giggle. Which only got worse when it turned out what he had underneath his jacket was a very large floppy hoody - you can’t, can you. I mean he’d probably got a ruff on under that.

My girl was Narrator No. 3. She said she had been an angel but something had happened and she was not one any more. I suspected this myself about 3 years ago. The show went well as far as I could tell. The costumes were good, the dancing snowflakes were lovely, the singing hearty. I’m not sure if the microphone had been brought in for a particularly quiet Narrator No 1 or if it might have been expected to work for the rest of them, but they all piped up well without it (Narrator Number 3, of course, was especially excellent I thought). Certainly it was less embarrassing than the show my younger boy was in, when he kept asking me if his shepherd’s cloak was brown or purple. I didn’t want to answer in case I chose the wrong colour and he threw a wobbler. Eventually though it became apparent a ruling was needed. “Purple” I hissed in a loud stage whisper. Which satisfied him, luckily.

From a school point of view, it must have been better than a Christmas show my eldest was in when we lived down south, where one bright spark suddenly realised he had been given an unmissable opportunity to swear in school in public. Whenever a slightly dodgy word came up - Jesus, Christ, sod, Lord; come, even - he yelled it out at the top of his voice. His teacher attempted to shush him, but by this point it was too late; the rest of the children had cottoned on, perked up, and were now actually positively enjoying the show. They muttered their way through most of the words, but every time a possible swear word came up - and believe me there are a lot in some carols - they gave it full voice. It was quite funny actually.

The eyebrows of my friend did rise once, though, at the casting of the Whoops a Daisy Angel - daughter of one of the class teachers. But I’m on the side of the Angel, because at work, a window seat has recently become vacant. Usually these are allocated according to how long you’ve been there. So you sit in the dark for so long, and eventually, you get to see out. According to this it should be me next, but as I only work 3/5 days there is some question about whether I get it, or my full-time colleague. I can see that he is there more to appreciate it. On the other hand, if I concede the point I won’t just spend 3/5 of my working life in the dark but the whole lot. Likewise it’s not very fair if the teacher’s kids never get the chance to shine. And shine she certainly did, she was lovely.

I do like these Christmas shows, more I think the older I get. Is it heresy to wonder if the kids really enjoy them? There is a lot of sitting about for them, and not much performing. One poor sausage near us definitely didn’t like it, and cried on and off throughout. Mine have usually had low level moans about doing them. I wonder if it might be better to do them a class at a time rather than all 100 P1’s at once? But then you don’t get all the parents together - hmm. Inconclusive post!