Out loud

Hey friend why are we always hiding?
It's no wonder that we're sinking down
Why should we stand in lonely shadows
with so much light around.

Hey friend why are we always crying?
so many tears are going to dry us out
what ever they're selling
we've gotta stop buying
cause' our pockets are empty now.

Chorus-
I've thought about it and I've prayed about it out loud out loud
And we can talk about it we can pray about it out loud out loud

Hey friend why are we always fighting
Who's left to hit when everybody's down
I know we're afraid but love is trying
to save us anyhow

Chorus

I think it's time we need a change.
we need to change a few things.
A few things.
I think its time we need to change a few things.
A few things.

Chorus

Tibetan Flag Raising

 

There are some amazing people in the world, and Caroline Scattergood has to be one of them. I was just another bod in the crowd about to sit in the Guildhall in Northampton, but Caroline greeted me as if I were one of her dearest friends with a warm hug. It is this warmth radiating from the Tibet flag raising ceremony that is its triumph. Not only is the flag raised but also people’s spirits are raised too.

Just as I was entering the Guildhall carrying my Tibetan flag I met a Tibetan monk and nun coming towards me. The joy on their faces on simply seeing someone carrying their flag was immense and they both greeted me with their hands together and a short bow which I attempted to emulate. I was so humbled by such an unexpected generous greeting.

Caroline’s words were deeply moving as we imagined the Dali lama’s grandmother being left behind when his family had to flee Tibet fifty years ago; and as Caroline showed us the photograph of the Tibetan child protesting in London as the Olympic flame heavily guarded by Chinese runners passed by we could only see the rightness of a Free Tibet for such gentle people.

The music by Earthdance was astounding and gave us all a chance to meditate and lose ourselves in sounds that were at times resonant with beauty and freedom. Sounds that were carried through the room so like cascading ripples in a pool; or sounds that spoke of the stillness of a mountain top where the high winds can blow.

When the Tibetan flag was ceremoniously unfurled and raised, even though the day was grey and overcast, it was as if there was sunshine. This dignified, blessed, peaceful, request for Tibet’s freedom and autonomy, this beautiful flag is now flying in Northampton’s town centre.

And all of this was Caroline Scattergood’s good work.

Torture

.
I wonder about the ordeals that people put others through.

Where once just saying, ‘I love kids’ at the interview was enough to secure a permanent position in a school, now there is an almost a Japanese endurance ordeal to undergo: first you have to visit the school, fill in the application form, write the letter of application, secure referees, and then if you are lucky enough to get an interview you then have to teach a 30 minute lesson before the interview grilling, finally, they ring you back in the evening to say yeah or nay.

On the morning of the interview I had my annual bath to calm my nerves and even treated myself to some rose scented bath foam.

Bliss!

I pulled the plug, dressed, and went downstairs, calm and collected.

Peaceful!

All I had to do now was go.

I went to get my car keys and to my horror discovered water pouring through the kitchen ceiling!

Lots of water!

Water with a faint tinge of rose mixed with damp plaster.

A waterfall of water!

Only the day before I had asked the plumber to come back because one of the new bath taps that he’d recently installed was loose in its moorings and dripping... the hot tap of course!

He’d arrived, fixed the tap tight, declared the tap to be broken and unfixable and said that I'd have to go back to B&Q to get a new one. Then he left me with the Timeless ceramic tap not living up to its name at all as it merrily dripped away every half second.

Ho hum!

And now on the morning of my interview, just after I’d reached a brief fragile moment of confident equanimity, after an entire week of angst and worry, water is now pouring through the kitchen ceiling, battering the amaryllis and dwarf daffodils and splashing all over the work surfaces.

I had to leave the house with water still pouring through the kitchen ceiling; and letters for The Teenager on the floor of the bathroom warning him not to have a bath under any circumstances.

Oh, and I'd also had to put the plug in the bath, because of course the tap was still dripping merrily away, and so, oh, of course the bath was steadily filling up with water which no doubt would soon reach the point where it would be pouring down the waste pipe to splash against the kitchen flora and fauna once again!

I left shutting the door on it all.

Heigh ho!

I had a long twenty mile drive to the school.

The lesson went well and the children worked beautifully.

The interview went well.

Although I can't now remember a single question, I felt I fielded them all as well as anyone possibly could...in the circumstances.

When I left the school I felt so positive.

When I got to Northampton I started to feel less so.

I picked  The Teenager up from his school. He was very upset about the bath situation.

He said he had to have a bath as he was meeting his friend, who is a girl, in town.

He had to bail out with a pan all the cold water in the bath left from the dripping tap, have his bath and then bail out all his dirty bath water.

He was not a happy bunny!

He demanded that I get the plumber back straight away.

The plumber was on the motorway. He said he was at Milton Keynes and that he'd come by.

The Teenager said he needed to go into town to meet his friend, who is a girl, who never turned up the last time.

I said, ‘I'll have to take you into town now as the plumber is coming.’

The Teenager's not a happy bunny about being taken into town early.

As I'm taking The Teenager into town, The Teenager gets message on phone from friend, who is a girl, saying could they meet up in town later at six instead of five –thirty?

The Teenager throws fit in car as he hates the town centre. I suggest that we continue with the journey and that he should go to the library and wait there a while.

I drop The Teenager off in the town centre...well I would have liked to have done...but The Teenager now needs to brush his hair...and brush his hair....and brush his hair.....five minutes later out he goes.

Met the Northampton rush hour traffic on the way back…lots of traffic.... no ...lots of traffic. Every traffic light was at red.

Met the plumber on the doorstep.

He plods upstairs in his dirty boots.

'Ah,' says the plumber, 'the waste pipe came adrift after I secured the still dripping tap.'

'Ah,' I say.

Not so much as a word of apology from the plumber!

I'm thinking I need a new plumber.

'I unfastened it,' he says, 'to secure the dripping tap. So some of the water was going down the pipe and some...'

I can't begin to tell you what I'd like to unfasten from the plumber… but limb from limb would be a start!

I am giving the plumber the evil eye.

Plumber mistakes evil eye for a 'come on'.

Plumber is looking me up and down in my slightly smarter clothes. I've used a bit of face powder to cover the Vesuvius spot that was on my nose that morning, and I've got a tiny bit of eye liner on.

Plumber is smiling in a sickly sort of way.

I show plumber The Door!

Plumber goes.

Phone rings... is it the school ...? It's early. Have I got the job.....?

No, it's The Teenager. Friend, who is a girl, has stood him up again, and can I pick him up from town he asks? Now?

I drive back to the town centre and pick up The Teenager who is now feeling murderous towards friend who is a girl.

I am feeling murderous towards the plumber.

The Teenager tells me he's a goat.

He's talking about himself.

This is while I'm driving!

The Teenager tells me he's a goat according to the Chinese.

Goats apparently can't say, 'No.'

I can think of a lot of other things that goats can't say bit I remain stum.

Then I wait for the phone to ring. And I wait and wait. It gets late, so late and there’s no phone call and I check to see if anyone rang while I was dashing into town several times… but no one had.

I guess I didn't get the job.

I long to have a bath to wind down but I've got to wait for her of the school to ring to say, 'No thank you.'

And it's late.

And I’m trembling with exhaustion and I’m feeling cross. Cross that I've wasted a week whittling, thinking and worrying. Cross about all that work, and all that planning, and all that preparation, and all my paper, and all my printing, and all my wasted inks,  that has all for nothing.

And I'm soooooo tired and exhausted.

Oh well, never mind, something else will turn up soon. Nowhere does it say that it is best practice to leave Niagara Falls in your kitchen on your way to a job interview; which is of course the ultimate Japanese water torture interview ordeal!

Two days later and the school still hasn’t bothered to phone.

I think I'll get in the bath anyway.

No doubt that’s when the phone will ring

 

 

….I did.

….It didn’t.

….Grrr!

 

.....!

How to be the World’s Worst Mum Step Fourteen: Mornings.

 

Teenagers are unable to cope with the lemony light of morning. They hunker down under goose feather duvets with tight shut eyes.

School days are the worst.

Alarms have gone off. The radio has peeped and a Teenagery arm has stretched out and shut down its chatter.

I try different tactics. I re-enact the way Frodo is greeted by Gandolf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and Merry and Pippin as he wakes up in bed after being rescued from Mt Doom…the spoof version playing all the characters one by one.

I sing ‘The Star Bangled Banner’ with none of the original words.

I launch furry cuddly toys on top of the Teenagery unstirring heap.

I lie and tell him that the bath water is running and that it will overflow if he doesn’t get into the bathroom asap; though having had bath water coming through the kitchen ceiling once before from an over-flowing bath he knows that it’s an idle threat and that I’d never dare that tactic again.

I tell him that it’s an hour later than it is.

I keep going back to the unstirring Teenager with time checks and threats of the imminent leaving of Mum’s taxi service.

Nothing works.

Then from somewhere underneath the duvet comes a voice that explains exactly what I’m doing wrong:

‘I’ll get out of bed faster if you didn’t keep waking me up!’
He tells me, before falling back into an even deeper sleep.

How to be the World’s Worst Mum Step Thirteen: The Packed Lunch.

 

No one should ever look inside a Teenager’s school bag.

It is an unwritten law.

I have long understood that a school bag is an inner sanctum, a place that can only be opened by the initiated, that is if they are wearing goggles, a face mask and rubber gloves!

A Teenager’s school bag, that repository of never delivered letters to parents, which lie furled up beside forgotten homework and under scrunched up worksheets; where part of a sweaty PE kit lies festering, buried beneath grubby text books; and where new gases unknown to science are constantly being formed from this nebula of slow and pungent decay should never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, be unzipped within a home.

‘Oh,’ I say as I see The Teenager standing in the hallway as if waiting for Mum’s Taxi Service.

‘It’s all right. I’ll sweep it up,’ he says.

There’s something I’m missing.

Then I see.

The teenager is standing surrounded by bread crumbs and crusts as if manna from Heaven has just been delivered from the Heavenly take away service.

I raise my eyebrows ever so slightly as if about to ask a question. I’m puzzled as to why divine intervention has occurred on this particular Tuesday morning all over our hall carpet.

I know things are bleak but that bleak?

I sit mystified on the bottom step wondering if we are to expect visits from passing ducks soon who would want to share in our sudden bounty. I’m half listening for the sound of waddling feet and quacks.

The Teenager is standing in the middle of it all.

Later, I discover that a year’s worth of breadcrumbs have fallen from his school bag onto the floor.

I’m then to discover that it is, of course, all my fault.

‘It’s the plastic bags you use,’ he complains, ‘they don’t do up properly, then all the crusts fall out and end up at the bottom of my bag. Then over time they get scrunched down into crumbs.’

I think of the tough freezer bags with their natty little closing tops that I have sealed many times so easily, and in which I have sometimes even stored soups without any problems, and I ponder the Teenager’s words.

‘I see,’ I say, not seeing at all.

Teenagers aren’t very good at eating crusts, or in putting their leftovers in the bin when there’s a handy school bag to stuff them into.

In the absence of rapacious ducks he begins to sweep up the mess.

‘So it wasn’t a visitation by God then,’ I say somewhat relieved.

He doesn’t hear over the noise of the vacuum cleaner.

And as I go to make him his packed lunch for the day, I must admit to being somewhat disappointed that no ducks did appear.

How to be The World's Worst Mum. Step Twelve: The Last School Trip.

.

Well, I did what all good mums do.

I watched on the Internet as details of the Teenager’s flight were announced, watching as the words slowly changed from ‘Gate Open’ to ‘Boarding’ to ‘Final Call’ to ‘Taxied’ and then to ‘Take Off’.

Then I scurried over to Beijing’s arrivals board to see when they expected this plane to land, simply to have it verified by their bold statements on the web page that yes the plane was still safely up in the air somewhere and on its way.

Exhausting!

I missed the information about the Teenager’s flight which took off ten days later. I was confused about the hours to add on, or take away, and the flight was already safely in the air by the time I’d negotiated my way to the Hong Kong airport website.

Everyone knows that planes are kept airborne only by people whittling and worrying about them; and that their flight through the atmosphere owes absolutely nothing whatsoever to so-called aerodynamics.

All of which explains why I woke up at three-thirty in the morning and set to work whittling and worrying yet again about said plane.

At four-thirty, I was watching the web page again for the word, ‘Expected’ to transmogrify into the blessed word, ‘Landed’.

Work done, I fell asleep while the World Service radio continued to burble soporifically on dull obscure themes.

The plane had landed half an hour earlier than listed on the itinerary details; details which I remembered also stated that they expected to be back at the school at eight in the morning.

I woke with a start at seven. Radio 4 was burbling light heartedly.

Had I missed a call?

I scurried downstairs to check if The Teenager had telephoned, to give an ETA.

There was a strange number on the telephone, a mobile number that I did not recognise; someone and not The Teenager had been trying to call. What had happened? I imagine a thousand scenarios and panicked.

I tried to ring The Strange Number and The Teenager but neither number connected. I dressed quickly and tried the number again.

Nothing!

Then it rang.

Instantly, drove to pick him up from the school.

The car park was empty.

Other parents had already collected their offspring. The coaches had been and gone; only a few teenagers were left waiting with a tired and disgruntled teacher like unwanted sales goods on an almost empty shelf.

‘Where were you?’ he demanded. ‘It said on the itinerary that we would arrive sometime before seven and eight. Where were you?’

‘Asleep,’ I confessed.

‘I’ve been waiting ages,’ he said.

‘I tried to ring,’ I explained.

‘Oh, I heard it,’ he explains witheringly. ‘You rang just as I was getting off the coach, so I switched it off,’ he said.

‘Ah!’ I replied.

‘You weren’t there,’ he says again.

‘Sorry, old chap!’

‘You’re going to be put in the cheapest nursing home now, for that!’ he tells me, and he means it.

‘The cheapest?’

He nods grimly.

I can already imagine my fate: the blank walls; the mis-matched slippers; the windows that will probably overlook the glue factory; the impatient carers; my false teeth falling from my lop-sided mouth and landing out of reach upon the thread-bare carpet; the smell of urine and dead cats; and the blank stares of other hapless residents. Residents who were probably once guilty too of being late to pick up their child after a school trip!

I imagine my internment in this room for the forgotten and shudder.

‘So you won’t be visiting me?’

He gives me a, ‘What do you think?’ expression.

‘Ah,’ I say, as I go off to practise my slow-shuffle walk and examine the deeper lines around my eyes grateful that that was the last school trip.