Leaving school

Son has only four more weeks of school. In 1994 when he started, he was fairly happy at first, but after a week or two, thought that perhaps he'd had enough now. He asked:
"Mum, do I have to go to school tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"And the next day?"
"Yes."
"And the next?"
"And the next?"
"Yes."
"And the one after that?"
"No, it's the weekend. You don't have to go for two days."
"Then do I have to go to school?"
"Yes."
"And the next day?"
"Yes."

He gave up asking. School looked like a life sentence to him. Yet now we can count the weeks until he leaves.

Bye bye daughter, till next week

Took daughter back to school this evening. This is the last trip back after a holiday; she leaves this year and won't be boarding for sixth form. Just as well, since her suit case was so heavy. She said it was full of books and she has been revising this holiday, which is admirable and a a relief for a worrying mother. However, she hasn't organised herself any work experience, and I haven't managed to find anything for her through my contacts, she'll be bored in the last week of June when the rest of her year are out experiencing work.

Busy

I'm so busy this year, but having 'flu has meant more pressure from family:
"Mum, can you ...?"
"You don't phone me any more." (This from my mum - sorry Mum).
"I've got you some xyz to cook for supper." (Kind, when I've just got in from work.)
"Mum's too busy to ..."

But

• two days a week of teaching,


• a day a week of advisory work,


• a day of studying and


• a day of tutoring

is a full time week, and leaves little time for mothering and housewife duties.

I'll do better soon because I'm losing three work contracts. Then I'll be time rich again.

Worst time of the year

Got flu at the start of March, so no posting for a bit while I catch up. There's something about March that makes people ill, depressed or just plain fed up. A number of staff at JCS were off sick, so those left got even more stressed at having to cover. What's the research that demonstrates how rotten people feel in March?

Moving neighbours

We went over to F, yesterday to a good bye party for A&D. They are retiring to Australia, to live somewhere 800 miles away from Perth. I hope the new life suits them, but I'm sorry they'll be so far away. It's like losing them for ever.

University union action

Over 17 years I've seen the OU change and change many things for the better;
I'll list them later.

But the OU has also changed my contract, and changed it for the worse. After 17 years tutoring with the OU, only my experience since 2002 counts. And for 16 of those years I could not contribute to a pension. Eventually, being so fed up, I joined the OUAUT and now the AUT is calling for strike action:

What is so ridiculous is that I'm teaching again, in a school, after 27 years . With less than three years teaching experience and those in a primary school, I am at the top of the main scale because my school recognises my 17 years of tutoring with the OU, years that the OU won't recognise. School teaching pays better than university tutoring.

My Not So Interesting Life

Son showed me this blog, written by a girl from the school next door to his. http://www.mynotsointerestinglife.blogspot.com/ It reflects son's life, his peer and age group, revealing sharp intelligence and the beginnings of maturity. It is highly amusing and presented using the right format for the medium. Enjoy.

Endoscopy

Son has now had letter from hospital telling him to contact hospital to arrange appointment to see consultant to discuss another appointment for the endoscopy. Son hasn't contacted anyone about going private because he's been very busy during the half term holiday. He's spent

• all mornings catching up with his sleep,


• most afternoons writing a very long piece of physics course work,


• some afternoons stripping the hall of wall paper or painting the bared walls, and


• the evenings watching the box.

Something else to worry about

Son has to have an endoscopy. Just as he is coming up to taking his A levels, he has to have an endoscopy. Not a blood test, not a breathe test, but an endoscopy. I am not happy.

He's been complaining about tummy and digestion problems for some months, went to see the GP in the autumn and got given antibiotics, which worked while he was taking them, but when he stopped taking them the problem returned, and muttering about H Pylori, the GP gave him more and stronger antibiotics, which worked while he was taking them, but when he stopped taking them the problem returned. So now the GP is getting him to see a consultant and booking him in for an endoscopy.

I wish I'd gone with him to the surgery so I could ask questions about alternatives and side effects. P said he didn't ask any questions because, "He's a professional, Mum!" "You ask questions of your teachers all the time! You don't believe them." "That's different."

Pensions again

Husband has a similar pension at Unisys to R's at EDS, so he started asking questions yesterday. CR, presumably in the same role as JB at EDS, said that this change was as a result of the Finance Act 2004 and she believed it would apply to the Unisys Pension Scheme.

Not satisfied with that, husband had already started talking to his colleagues, who have similar pension arrangements, and haven't been told that anything is changing. Similarly, son talked to friends at school, who were as indignant as him.

JB rang me this morning to say that it was 'good news'. Son can keep the pension up to 25. It only impacts on people who are not yet receiving a pension.

However, there are still issues:

• people (e.g. at EDS & at Unisys) running pensions haven't told the pensioners nor the prospective pensioners


• people paying into their pensions will have a reduced deal for their dependants


• EDS, if I hadn't queried it, might have carried on refusing to pay after the age of 23.
  

So where do we go from here?

Pensions

NEGU: I need the Never Ever Give Up thought today. Over ten years ago, R had an agreement with his company, EDS, that laid out the rules for the pension scheme. Part of the agreement was that if he died before retirement, as he did, then a pension would be paid to his children while they were in full-time education, up to the age of 25. However, now we learn that a regulation changes this agreement, and the pension will be up to the age of 23. The EDS pensions people have written to P asking him if he is still in full-time education, but telling him that the pension must stop at 23.

I do not see how it can be changed retrospectively, unless we agree. If someone can take away my children’s right to a pension, then someone could take away the pension that I receive, and could take it at any time, maybe when I’m 79, 84, when ever. It’s too late for me to do much to improve my pension prospects now.

I rang EDS to ask. JB told me that new regulations to simplify pension arrangements mean that anyone who receives a pension and is 18 after 6th April 2006, can receive the pension only until they are 23, not 25. I looked up the Inland Revenue web site http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pensionschemes/draftregs.htm that refers to this simplification, but I can’t see where it says anything about being 23 and losing your pension.

P is so cross that he's already written and posted his letter to our MP.

Partying

Parents go partying and teenagers stay in.

J had a party and lives some 40 miles away, so I wanted to stay the night. However, the same evening A was booked to go to a gaudy. (That's a party in an Oxford college, to which only the college members or ex-members may go). Dilemma! If we both went out, then we left our teenage children on their own, all night.

We went our separate ways. We left our teenagers. When my slightly-the-worse-for-wear husband got back the next morning they were still alive and squabbling.

The Producers

A asked me, "Do you want to go and see 'The Producers'?"
"What's that then?"
"It's a film about a musical."
"Not a film about a musical, about a film about a musical about a film about a book?"
"We ell...It's about two producers who make a musical about a book. It was a film, years ago."
"No, thanks."

So he went out and got us four tickets, came back beaming, and showed them to me. "I've got them for Monday night", he said. "Look, 7.30."
"Why does it say 'Narnia'?"
Slow thoughtful response, "I'm sure I asked for 'The Producers'."

So he went back to the cinema and got four tickets for 'The Producers', for 8.45 on Monday evening. That's a bit late when there's school and work the next day.

We enjoyed the outing, partly because there were hardly any people out on January 2nd and the cinema was almost empty. Perhaps everyone had partied enough. I'm not sure how my nicely convent educated daughter managed to laugh at so many of the naughty bits in the film. Even though I was really tired on Tuesday, it was a relaxing end to the holiday,

Success comes in halves

9/18 of my OU MT262 tutor group gained distinctions this year. I'm chuffed.

Juggling

Juggling is a mother's life. Balance the needs of teenagers against husband. Remember that old story about the mother who had to be sure that her baby got its bottle and that her husband didn't.

Tuesday I planned supper to be early at 5 o'clock so that I could get teenager to Tae Kwondo without indigestion at 7, but at 4 o'clock, when I should have been preparing the food, happy husband was icing the Christmas cake in the kitchen, so I popped out muttering about getting scones and having tea at 5.30 instead of supper. I duly returned with sweet food, tapped on ceiling to call teenager down, got ignored so ate with husband. At 6.30 went to tell teenager, "I'm getting changed now" to be told that she was too hungry to come to Tae Kwondo. I threw a wobbly and stalked off, returned a few minutes later with my hat and coat on, and found she was half dressed, so I waited in the car until a neighbour wanted to get out and I was blocking her. Left without b* teenager.

Tae Kwondo was great. I had a lovely time. Being the last day of term we didn't practise patterns or sparring but played tag: pair tag, walk the white line tag, chain tag. There were penalties for being tagged, like 3 press ups if you're green belt but 5 if you're above. And we finished with a competition where each team had to learn a pattern composed by the leader, of 12 moves and with a Christmas theme. Our included me doing break dancing, or a form of Russian leap frog. It went down very well, and G probably would have been embarrassed had she been there.

Our team won and we had to do an encore.

See http://www.btkd.co.uk/

GrannyB alias GG alias Mum alias Betty (nee Fear)

Middle of the generations

As gradually your children go, you take on responsibility for your parents.

All her life, A's 90 year old mother lived in Keynsham, only moved to Aylesbury two months ago so she was near both her sons, and several of her grandchildren. J could visit on Saturdays, and Sundays she has lunch with us. The residential home is close and phones us with any problems. Every Friday evening S visits her. I was getting to know her, and through her, to know her son, my husband better. Last week we compared our attitudes on size of families.

But at 4.30 on Saturday morning we heard that she'd gone into hospital. The hospital said she had pneumonia and yesterday she died.

Today is Sunday. We shall miss her at lunch time.

Off to uni again

'Where's Daddy wandered off to?' she queried this morning as she packed her computer and cleared her room. 'If this were you, you'd have had a heart attack by now!' she warned him eventually, as he beamed and bumbled round the house, not carrying her boxes to the car.

She needs even more stuff this year because she's renting somewhere with three lads.

Punctuation free text

Not emergency just inform e went via cellar fnt door wdnt unlock i did it its ok now do i lock inner cellar door and door wher cat food is is open ok 2 close so i can put alarm on o


While on holiday C, our cleaner sent me this text. Punctuationless, it took a while to understand, but it is content full.

When E gets up after we've left, we've locked the front door while she sleeps, so if she finds it too difficult to open, she rushes out the cycle cellar door, which means it's a pain to put the alarm on. The day that C sent this, E also had to feed the cat, because her dad wasn't there to feed it, but she was late and her lift was waiting.

Responsibility of Mothers

What are we mothers that bring up children who self immolate? These are our people and our children, surrounded by our brothers, sisters, cousins, spouses and parents. We nurtured the suicide bombers. We are to blame, and those closest to the bombers must be most to blame.