Worries

Matilda is beautiful, lively and has a wonderful personality. She is not yet 18 months old and yet she has already acquired the ability to manipulate those around her.  If she is somewhere that she doesn't want to be, then she takes my finger and gently pulls me to where she does want to be. She gets what she wants by pointing and making appropriate noises and to all intents and purposes she is a perfect child, whatever that means.  However, things are not all they seem to be.  Matilda had one of her regular trips to St Thomas' hospital yesterday and the issue with her aorta has worsened.  Basically it seems that the walls are thickening and she needs intervention.  The next step is the introduction of a device to open the artery and so this poor little mite will have to undergo the procedure in the next few months.  I find it quite upsetting so goodness knows what her parents must be feeling.
On the positive side, the problem was spotted early by a very aware paediatrician, and so she is getting the best care in a centre that specialises in such problems, and of course she is totally unaware of her problem.
For now though it feels that we are living with a potential time bomb and it doesn't feel very nice.

Private education

People change so they say.  Having worked in state education for thirty three years, I have long been opposed to the divisive nature of the private school system. I could no more have applied for jobs in the private sector than do one armed press ups, and yet I now have a grandson in a private school and a grand daughter signed up for her place.  Initially my feelings about this were confused, but having had time to come to terms with it, I fully support their parents' decision to give their children such a good start in life.
I attended their open day this morning and arrived at morning breaktime. We were given a guided tour by two delightful eleven year olds and were suitably impressed by what we saw. The buildings are all new or well maintained and every classroom is attractive and well equipped with all the latest IT. The kids are well presented in smart uniforms and smiles, they are polite to vistors to teachers and seemingly to each other. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming and I am glad that my grandchildren are being given this advantageous start.
Friends of theirs, less well off financially, are finding it hard to get their children into their schools of choice, and one child is having to settle for their fourth choice of school.
Parents have been sold a lie for a number of years; there is no choice for those who cannot afford to send their children to a fee paying school. Long gone are the days of catchment areas, today school placement is a lottery with many of the better state schools implementing a selection by the back door policy. State education is underfunded and teachers constantly undermined and undervalued by a system that values statistics rather than the reality of a childs future. I know many state sector teachers and many are worn out by the ridiculous pressures placed upon them. Behaviour is deteriorating and staff have little in the way of sanctions, exclusion being old fashioned and expulsion an ancient myth. However dysfunctional a child it will be kept in school, screaming and kicking maybe, at the expense of all those others who have to put up with it.
I do not believe that all fee paying schools are wonderful, but I do understand why the middle classes wish to protect their children from some of the less desirable elements of society and at least give them an opportunity to learn in a world where education is valued by employers if not by consumers.

Huis Clos

Jean Paul Sartre said that Hell is other people. In his day, there was no such thing as a long haul flight and I am sure that was he able to experience twelve and a half hours crammed into a metal tube with over three hundred fellow sufferers, he may have had reason to modify his idea.
The flight from Hong Kong to Heathrow came on top of a one hour flight from Blenheim to Auckland, a five hour wait in Auckland and then a twelve hour flight to Hong Kong and a three hour wait there, altogether not a great start to the final leg of the journey.
To begin with, I hate crowds and boarding the plane was, as always a chaotic process with everyone ignoring their instructions, bustling to gain their seats as if it was first come first served; as it is the first on has so much longer to sit down in the confines of their seat, watching the rest of us hauling our unwilling bodies down the aisles and squabbling for space for the overhead lockers. What do people not understand about ONE item of hand baggage?  Some waddle onto the plane with so much stuff that it takes them an age to find enough locker space to contain it and generally the same people are too short to accomplish that feat without assistance.  Having taken my seat, aware that I was now confined for the next 13 hours including take off and landing,  my first aim was to get comfortable. Cattle class seats are basic and uncommodious and austere though ingeniously constructed to get everything into that tiny allocated space that is to be ones entire world for what seems forever.  My knees pressed into the back of the seat in front ensured that every movement of the large lady in front can be felt and the inevitable non aggressive battle for the armrests began.
I had an aisle seat which is a mixed blessing. I could get up and wander to the toilet without disturbing anyone unless I fell over, but then people had to disturb me if they wished to get out. Then of course anyone wandering down the aisle would brush against me, thus ensuring total lack of sleep. Babies howling, the endless white noise from the cabin, turbulence, flatulence, plastic trays and plastic cups providing food and drink that always smells and tastes the same as any other airline meal, and the map on the screen in front reminding you of just how far you still have to go, together make a less than joyous experience.
I anticipate landing with trepidation mixed with feelings of relief.  On one hand, I am soon to be freed from this metal tube filled with more than three hundred random human beings that I will never see again, whilst on the other hand I am reminded of the definition of landing. It is simply a controlled crash. Hundreds of tonnes of metal and plastic mixed with organic matter hitting the ground at two hundred miles an hour, relying on a few rubber tyres.  This has now been made terrifyingly real with the presence of a camera slung underneath the plane so you can watch the ground approaching. I am sure its role is to terrify passengers as for most of the flight all you can see is cloud tops or darkness.
Anyhow once released there is the scramble to get through immigration and the melee of baggage claim, wading through a sea of tired and tetchy travellers most of whom have failed to make their baggage easy to spot.
Sartre was right but I wish that he could have travelled more.