A Garden Gnome in Paris…

I mentioned last month about how our trip to Paris to celebrate Rachel’s birthday had been inspired by one of our favourite films, Amélie. An important sub-plot of that film revolves around Amélie stealing her father’s prize garden gnome, gives it to her airline crew friend, who then sends back anonymous photos of the gnome from landmarks around the globe. All this is a cryptic ruse to encourage her father to travel…

In the weeks before our trip, Rachel surprised even me with her film geekery and determination to seek out the key locations from the film. We chose our apartment on Rue Lepic specifically for its position in the heart of Montmartre, within walking distance of Sacré Coeur. But she went much, much further, checking out various unofficial ‘walking tours’ and chatrooms. I was shocked, but not a little impressed.

And so to enter into the spirit of things, I acquired (secretly) a gnome of our own to take to Paris. We revealed him to Rachel as the Eurostar train emerged from beneath the English Channel into France, and from then on he was a nearly constant companion as we explored Paris for the next three days.

We went to Gare de l’Est to get passport photos…

We managed to visit most of the main locations from the film, and I’ve created a Google map here. You’re welcome!

Film geeks ahoy! Spot the reference…

And here are some snaps of those locations and our gnome in Paris…

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Scenes from a life…

Around 12 months ago, The Real Adventure (where I work) initiated a little extra agenda item for the monthly all-agency meeting. Volunteers were sought to present a pecha kucha, which could be about anything they chose. The purpose was to offer the whole agency to talk about something they cared about, and for the rest of us to learn a little more about each other.

This last week, it was my turn. I had thought about film clips or scenes, and even tried to make the technology work to play 20 sound clips. But in the end I opted for a more linear narrative approach, relating moments from my life that still resonate with me now, and/or have seemingly changed the course of my life, even if I didn’t realise it at the time…

You can view the full set of slides on slideshare, together with extended speaker notes (there’s no way I could tell all the stories I wanted to in 20 seconds per slide!)… but to give you a flavour, a couple of selections…

Monday 11th January 1988
Between school and university, I went to the States for 6 months on a school exchange, and this boy from the Cotswolds discovered the world…

I had no baggage, I found I could break out from my own self-imposed teenage constraints – clever, not ‘cool’, awkward in conversation – especially with girls(!). On the very first morning at school in the US, I was invited to skip a class by other guys in the Senior Year, and we went out to get ice cream (it was January and about 5 degrees below zero!), then one of them drove his car around the icy carpark, spinning and wheeling in all directions, before ploughing into a snowbank. This seemed a long way from Gloucestershire.

I played in a jazz band, started to write a screenplay, skied in Colorado. I travelled on my own from New York to Seattle and San Francisco and back again. I was refused re-entry to the US at Niagara Falls. I gambled in casinos in Reno. I thought I was Don Johnson on top of the World Trade Centre…

Thursday 7th June 1990

At the end of my 2nd year at university, I signed up for an ERASMUS exchange to study in France, without consulting anyone, let alone my parents. A real snap decision. It was a brilliant and far-reaching decision, as I got to go skiing in the French Alps A LOT, even buying my own boots and skis. We travelled down to the Mediterranean for a weekend, we took a trip into Italy. We met and studied with multi-lingual French, Italian, Dutch, German students.

Most far-reaching of all, it was in Chambéry that I studied marketing & market research for the first time, and discovered more human, practical, real-world ways to apply my thinking beyond the more abstract, macro-economic aspects of my degree course.

Even more so, if I’d not gone to France for a year I wouldn’t have been at Exeter in my 4th year, and almost certainly wouldn’t have met Rachel.

Thursday 12th March 1992

I’ve played the horn since I was 12. In my Final Year at University, I’m playing 1st horn in Mahler’s 2nd Symphony. It’s 90 minutes long, with 10 French Horns in an orchestra of over 100 and a choir of approaching 200. The Great Hall at Exeter is packed with up to 1,000 people (?certainly hundreds?). After the massive final chords, the audience erupts. Section by section the orchestra is called to stand by the conductor. Still shaking from the effort, the concentration, the exhilaration, it’s the turn of the Horns.  There are cheers, people are standing. We nailed it. I nailed it.

It’s still my happy place moment.

Friday 30th January 2003

I’ve only ever actively resigned from one job, and that was back in 1994. I’ve been sold once and made redundant twice – and all of them have been Good Things, especially this last one. On 30th January 2003 I was finally set free from the politics at Barclaycard. I was sent home on gardening leave while Rachel had Post-Natal Depression and Hannah was still only 7 months old. It precipitated our move back from Oxfordshire to Gloucestershire, and my career shift from client to agency, as I came to TRA.

My life, like all our lives, has featured many important and properly life-changing moments. But even more, there have been countless fleeting moments, or events that might seem like nothing, but are often a lot more than nothing.

Many of these moments don’t matter, are forgotten and lost forever. But many of them really do matter. For longer, and in ways we couldn’t begin to realise at the time.

 

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Let the children play…

I try not to go over too much old ground in these posts, but sometimes there is a conspiracy of coincidences that just come together. Over this past weekend the main catalyst came while I was having lunch with Hannah, my elder daughter.

We were visiting friends as their daughter is close in age to our younger daughter, and she had invited us (Eleanor) to her birthday party. As this party was ostensibly geared for 7-year-old girls, both Hannah (10½) and I (nearly 44) made ourselves scarce. We walked into town for a bit of Dad-and-Daughter time. Often this is restricted to a few minutes at bedtime or when I pick her up after Guides, but on Saturday we had a couple of hours to ourselves. We installed ourselves in a café, she ordered the biggest milkshake on the menu, and I tried not to worry that people would think I was a Divorced Dad having my alternate-weekend access. Actually, I’m just having a bit of lunch with my daughter ON OUR OWN…

We started talking about our plans for a summer holiday – we’re hoping to go back to SW France – and I asked Hannah if there were any things she would like to do again, or places she’d like to revisit. I was expecting something along the lines of swimming in the rivers, but instead, after some thought, she declared…

I know what I’d like to do but will never be able to…

I tried not to look concerned, wondering where this was going.

…I’d like to go back in time and see the look on Oliver Cromwell’s face when I play him Gangnam Style… I’d take back the biggest speakers we could find, and I’d get Jack Wright (her classmate) to do the dancing. I’d love to see his face…

OK. I hadn’t thought of that one.

She knows Olive Cromwell was a puritan, and the puritans were no fans of dancing (thankyou, Horrible Histories!). So what would happen if…

I’ve written before about the innate creativity in children, and their fearlessness at expressing it. Sir Ken Robinson has spoken and written marvellously for years about the dangers of our education system treating all children the same, assuming that one type of intelligence is more important than others. When Hannah started learning to swim, she couldn’t seem to focus on swimming in straight lines across the pool. Even by my standards her concentration  span is flaky, but she has an imagination that regularly surprises me, making lateral leaps I can barely fathom.

Later during the weekend I read an article in which the Tory Government finally completed the circle of demotivating every stage of UK education. Having already dealt with secondary and primary schools, Michael Gove has let loose his minister Liz Truss to champion changes in nursery and pre-school care.
In an impressive double-whammy, the Government plans to relax rules to allow nurseries to take on more children without having to hire more staff, yet at the same time, according to media reports, Ministers want youngsters to start being taught reading and maths at a younger age.

Nursery staff have a job of educating. It is not just looking after children.

But, and I’ll say this as calmly as I can, playing is an education for toddlers. They learn motor skills when they start to make marks with crayons; they learn social skills when they share crayons; they develop self-awareness and consideration for others when they take turns with the crayons. They build their imagination when they create stories, dress up, dance to music, listen to stories being read to them, sing songs. And at the same time, caring for pre-school children is really labour-intensive: it just is. Young children require more help and attention, socially, emotionally and physically, and it’s commensurately tiring for the carers.

While I was digesting this (IMHO) insane and inappropriate plan, I also discovered this article from nearly 5 years ago, suggesting precisely the opposite approach to that of our increasingly prescriptive Government. Self-regulating make-believe play is immensely important to develop the skills that will later be important for more formal education. But…

Despite the evidence of the benefits of imaginative play, however, even in the context of preschool young children’s play is in decline. According to Yale psychological researcher Dorothy Singer, teachers and school administrators just don’t see the value.

“Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time,” Singer says. “I have so many articles that have documented the shortening of free play for children, where the teachers in these schools are using the time for cognitive skills.”

It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage — to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them — our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that “wasted time” was not such a waste after all.

Childish imagination is a marvel of the human brain. Impossible leaps of faith and vision can be magical and inspiring. In a final coincidence this past weekend we were reading the wonderful Emily Brown stories, in which the titular heroine plays with her favourite toy rabbit, Stanley, exploring the Amazonian rainforest or reaches of Outer Space, all from the comforts of her garden or kitchen.

When did we become afraid of our children being children? I’m as middle-class as they come, but where’s the clamour of angry parents demanding their children get a ‘proper’ education from their pre-school nursery? I don’t doubt that Gove et al. genuinely believe they’re doing the right thing, but when did sincerity and honest belief make something OK? That didn’t go so well with Iraq and WMD.

I Reckon this Government is systematically ignoring the weight of expert evidence and best practice to instead pursue an agenda based on their personal experiences and prejudices. But they’re messing with children at their most vulnerable, seeking to make childcare cheaper when it’s most important that providers don’t cut corners. Parents don’t want the reassurance their toddlers are getting an education; they want to know their toddlers are safe and happy.

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Born the King of An-gels…

You might have noticed an absence of new posts from me in the last few weeks, mostly due to an unrelenting workload of exciting new business pitches that just kept coming. Everyone in our office has been absolutely flat-out, and while it’s been both exhilarating and challenging (mostly in a good way), it has meant that this blog has been somewhat neglected…

…but finally, it feels like there is some respite (although I’m already nervous about January!). So indulge me while I reflect on how we’ve at least started to have a very merry Christmas…

Singing Carols

Ever since my schooldays in the annual carol service choir, I’ve loved the range of different carols sung in this country. I can still remember our music teacher taking us to task over breathing (some carols have v-e-r-y l-o-n-g lines), or that line in O Come, All Ye Faithful. It’s “born the king of an-gels”, not “born the king of ay-n-gels”. It just is. Take my word for it.

Anyway, as I’m finally writing this early on Christmas Eve yet, I’ve already been part of three fantastic carol-singing opportunities.

The first was at the usual “turning-on” of Tetbury town’s Christmas lights; except this year it wasn’t usual. HRH Prince Charles and his wife Camilla (the Duchess of Cornwall) are well-known locals, living only a couple of miles away, and this year they switched on the lights. And so, at the end of this very Royal year, Tetbury had made a big effort. Schoolchildren made lanterns and we all processed up the main street, and hundreds of us stood around the Market Hall singing carols until the Royal couple arrived. It was bitterly cold, but the atmosphere was terrific.

During all this, Rachel and I were lucky to be stood fairly near the front of the crowds. We were behind a guy sat in a motorised wheelchair, offering us a good view over his head, until he took a massive camera out of his bag, and stood up. It was so unexpected it filled us with unstoppable giggles. He was a big man.

So, not completely incapacitated then…

Just a couple of days later, we were very lucky to be in the audience for the City of London Choir’s performance in St John’s Smith Square in Central London. This was a high-class performance, but for all its professionalism the highlight was still when the children in the audience were invited up on stage to sing “Away in a Manger”…

Hannah just to the left of the conductor, Eleanor on the far right in the front row…

Lastly, we packed into the beautifully tiny Avening Church for a service of nine lessons and carols, this time attended by HRH Princess Anne (another local!). Rachel had been asked to accompany some of the choir’s carols on her oboe, and I’m not just being biased when I say she was fabulous.

This evening, we’ll be in Tetbury for the Christmas Eve Crib service, designed for children to participate and make Christmas about more than the wrapping paper and the presents, the chocolates and television.

The Parties

Our company parties have often been legendary affairs, often for  a combination of reasons, such as fantastic creativity, brilliant fancy dress, dance-floor or karaoke performances, or simply the fact that the alcohol consumed so addled everyone’s memory that the retelling of events might be patchy at best. This year we scrubbed up extremely well with a 1920s theme. I’ve never seen so many white braces and black shirts, feathery fascinators and strings of pearls in one place. And the cocktails… marvellous.

The invite suggested we dress in ‘silver screen glamour’, and so I went for a literal version of this, channeling Douglas Fairbanks, Jr as a classic cinema icon. I enjoyed walking through Bristol at rush hour in full costume to reach the party, and at seeing my silhouette beneath the street lights…

And then on Saturday, we gathered with friends in Tetbury’s Market Hall (the same one Prince Charles illuminated a couple of weeks ago), to drink and chat and watch our children dance to Gangnam Style and Lollipop. It was noisy, chaotic and brilliant, reminding how lucky I am to live here, in a lovely town with fantastic friends.

The School Nativity

In all honesty, these can be mixed affairs, for all their innocence. But this year the KS1 children at St Mary’s (and their teachers) outdid themselves. A Tale of Two Birthdays told the parallel stories of the traditional Nativity alongside that of King Caspar’s 40th birthday. His party came complete with circus performers and exotic dancers. The wives of the Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar were like something out of Sex & The City, coveting the new star in the sky like a glittering diamond, and commanding their hen-pecked husbands to retrieve it for them. The reason the Kings travelled from The East, was actually a last-minute shopping trip! I’m not saying they were typecast, but Sophie, Isobel and Amelia were perfect in their roles, at once a crystal-clear depiction and commentary on modern-day consumerism.

Fergus exuded astonishingly natural regal authority as Caspar, bossing his hapless companions around, feeding people their next line, and apparently improvising more than a couple of his own. He was amazing. There were also messages on friendship, militarism and teamwork alongside the traditional Christmas story, all in 30 minutes.

Eleanor was one of two narrators, following in the family tradition, and she was great. While I’d helped her practise her lines, noone had told me that she and Katie (the other narrator) had a song which involved them singing unaccompanied, with no microphones. The sound of two 7-year-old girls’ small voices in a large hall was one thing, but when one of them was my daughter… let’s just say it suddenly got very dusty in there.

It’s been a frantic couple of months, and even now the torrential rain is causing a change of plan for Christmas as my parents’ living room now has puddles in, so we’re relocating the festivities tomorrow to our house. But today I shall bake a ham and bake sourdough bread, go to the Crib Service, tidy the house up and watch A Muppet Christmas Carol, and It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Wishing you all the very best.

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Teach to the test…

I’ve thought long and hard about writing this piece, because I recognise that it uncovers all sorts of contradictions and tensions, almost even hypocrisies in my feelings. But then, as a Bleeding-Heart Liberal, I suppose I should just get used to them, and I hope, dear readers, that you have too. If you’re still here, then thanks.

I was educated at a state (public) primary school, then won a scholarship to a nearby independent private school from 11-18. My parents entered me for the scholarship/entrance exams because (among other reasons) they and some of their friends perceived that, at the local state comprehensive school, “bright children do well despite the school, not because of it.”  I was a bright child, one of the top in my class.

My elder daughter Hannah is a bright child, one of the top in her class, despite being one of the youngest in her year-group. She’s got a vocabulary that sometimes seems to baffle her friends as well as grown-ups and she reads voraciously. Her concentration span varies from the excellent to the non-existent, and she gets bored/distracted quite easily, always on the lookout for new ideas.

I know, I know, how could any child of mine be like that?!

Anyway, we recently entered Hannah for the 11+ exams for entry into a local Grammar School. Everyone we knew seemed to think Hannah would get through easily, she seems to have a natural head for the problem-solving types of questions, she’s bright (etc etc). We bought some practice papers and exercises to help her practise the question techniques, and over a couple of months her efforts in timed practice papers at home were encouraging. But she didn’t achieve the required standard in the actual tests, and so won’t be considered by the Grammar School.

We were disappointed. I’m a bit of an academic snob (being bright and all), and I thought she was bright enough to go to the best academic school in the area. But after a bit of reflection (and post-rationalisation!), we’re pleased she can go to the local comprehensive school. It’s less than a mile from our house, so she can walk there and back with her friends. It’s a relatively small school, so it’s pretty friendly and many of the children there live locally. We were very impressed with the Head Teacher and many of the facilities (especially for the Performing Arts), and while it’s not had a great reputation, it’s definitely improving.

What has become clear to me in the past few weeks and months, is that we were in a distinct minority, as we didn’t have Hannah tutored for the tests, and indeed only started to practise with her at home a few months beforehand. There is an impressive (but to me, pretty depressing) website that seems to have everything you need to know about these tests…

If you have found this site at the end of Year 4 or the start of Year 5 it is the ideal time to begin your 11+ DIY “campaign” through with home tutoring…

I’m either naive or stupid for not treating this whole process like a military campaign, like a project with timelines and deadlines. I actually thought this was about whether my child was bright enough and had the right problem-solving abilities, vocabulary, verbal reasoning skills. But it turns out it’s all about teaching for the test.

That same website has a detailed questionnaire that has received over 9,000 responses (more like 6,000 for the financial questions I refer to).
Among the respondents…

• Just under 2/3 admitted to using a private tutor
• On average, they started preparing their children for the 11+ just under a year in advance, with 37% starting more than a year before the tests (when their child was still in Year 4, probably aged 9)
• Those who did use a private tutor spent over £20/hour on average, and over £1,000 in total on tuition

All this makes the 11+ more about teaching and preparation than anything else. Certainly the children have to be bright to pass the exam, but as Michael Rosen so rightly remarks, multiple choice tests are not really about knowledge, or curiosity, or exploration. They are about focus and technique more than discovery and interpretation.

What’s more at the heart of multiple choice tests there is a question of technique. Teachers will teach the exam-taking knowledge to a) bomb on through the test, don’t linger. b) if you don’t know the answer, guess – you’ll have a one in four chance of being right. This last point will almost certainly win you extra marks over the person who is not doing that and has absolutely nothing to do with the syllabus knowledge and everything to do with exam-technique knowledge.

At the last election we were promised less testing and more teaching. I’ve not seen much proof of that, as new single tests for phonics and reading have been introduced for my younger daughter’s year, aged just 6, despite a wealth of evidence suggesting there is certainly no one way of learning to read that suits every child. The pressure of school league table results has been brought to the fore with a recent furore over GCSE marks. These league tables are useful ways to track comparative performance, but are increasingly seen as the be-all-and-end-all. I tend to agree more with this thoughtful article that advocates teaching to stimulate independent thought (wow! controversial, apparently…)

I don’t feel cheated. I do feel disappointed in the system. I don’t blame our friends who did have their children tutored. Not all of them succeeded, but I don’t know anyone who (like us) didn’t employ a tutor whose child passed the tests. It’s a shame that Grammar Schools attract the most able children as that has a knock-on effect on the local comprehensives. It’s a shame the Grammar Schools are so unevenly distributed, as that can affect some areas/schools (like ours) disproportionately. It’s a shame that the 11+ has evolved into something that seems to demand or require private tutoring, which means 9 & 10 year-olds are having hours of tuition after school every week for a year or more. Hannah already has piano lessons, used to go to Tae-Kwan-Do class, and has acted in a junior Am-Dram production. How much more do we expect of them? It’s a shame that this system seems to favour those who can afford £1,000 or more for tuition. It’s a shame that some people have reacted to our news with shock, have assumed that will ‘appeal’, and seem to think that this will blight my daughter’s future prospects.

Most of all, I’ve been upset, frustrated and angry at the way this whole thing has made me feel: like I’m not trying hard enough for my daughter’s education, that in not appealing I don’t care enough, that a few hundred pounds is an investment in her future and by not spending it I’ve failed her. It’s taken me a few weeks, but I Reckon that’s all boll*cks. My only mistake was not playing the system. But I don’t want to play the system: it’s not a level playing-field. I’d rather listen to Hannah playing pop songs by ear on the piano or watch a film with her than sit her down for more homework. She’s 10. And maybe that’s naive. Whatever.

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I know what I learned this summer…

One of the best things about our summer holiday was that it lasted longer than a week: in fact, it extended to nearly three weeks in all including our return to the UK swiftly followed by a Bank Holiday weekend visiting friends. This gave me plenty of proper quality time with my fabulous daughters, which left me with several new lessons…

• They are both pretty amazing at coping with us driving solidly for 2 days each way to/from SW France. They did have a DVD player and a few films to choose from, but we did limit its use (a bit). They’re only 10 & 6, and their patience (compared to what I know about other families) was impressive. They only seemed to lose the will when we did, i.e. on the Godawful M25
• If Eleanor says the water is cold, it really is…
• Hannah (just 10) is now stretched, between being a gorgeous little girl, and growing up. She still loves to play imaginary games with her little sister, she still likes to act and behave like a young(er) girl. But at the same time the hormones are beginning to flow through her system and she can’t understand all the ways that makes her feel. And I know I’m not much wiser than she is…
• …Rachel will probably always be the #1 parent on that front. I want to help, but accepting I don’t have anything like all the answers isn’t always easy. When Hannah was a (pretty difficult) newborn, she barely slept more than 2 hours at a time for the first few months, and cried quite a lot in between times. Lots of well-meaning neighbours and friends offered comfort like “it gets easier”. Actually, it just gets different. Every stage is new with its own challenges. True, they’re often more rewarding than the seemingly impossible task of getting a baby into sleep routines, but that doesn’t make them easier
• But despite the onset of early pre-teen awkwardness, Hannah is pretty mature, self-aware and considerate of others. Her increasing independence is (so far) pretty benign, and she’s cautiously exploring boundaries. She makes herself a cup of tea in the mornings (two sugars!). While we were camping recently, she liked to take off around the campsite in the dark on her bike.
• Eleanor is a proper little Daddy’s girl; always wanting to hold my hand, cuddle or sit with me etc. This can bother Rachel quite a lot, as Ella can effectively ‘snubs’ her attentions. Much as sometimes this makes me feel awkward, I’m also kind of glad. I must be doing something right…

This was actually taken in June 2011

• Hannah knows all sorts of stuff I couldn’t have imagined, like that the Millau Viaduct was designed by a British architect. In your face, Michael Gove!
• One of my prouder achievements as a father is indoctrinating encouraging our girls to develop a broad range of musical, literary and cinematic tastes. They’re already proper little cinephiles who care more for Studio Ghibli than some of the trashy Hollywood fare (although not entirely…!). They’re huge fans of the dark fantastical comedy of Roald Dahl, and on the evidence of this holiday, the musical element of my MasterPlan is taking shape well. We helped pass the time on our long drives with an occasional “Moody Jukebox” where we each chose a few songs from my iPod. KT Tunstall, The Cure, Damien Rice, The Bookshop Band, The Beatles, and various eclectic artists culled from my catalogue of Word Magazine CDs were all prominent (big Dad smiley face!!)
• They also like listening to The Archers (big Mum smiley face!!)
• Hannah is eating from grown-up menus now. On our last night in Orléans, she enjoyed (and demolished) chilled Gazpacho soup, Chicken Basque and a massive bowl of rich chocolate mousse. Where it all goes is beyond me, but she loves her food and this is only going to start costing us money (see what I mean about different, not easier!). I mean, she even eats roast pork crackling now – whatever happened to parental privileges?!
• Their imaginations are terrific. While we were in France, they used some of their holiday money to buy a new Playmobil set – a camper van with a family and a couple of bikes. This quickly became An everyday tale of cycling folk, as they christened the family member as Bradley Wiggins (Dad), Victoria Pembleton (Mum), Chris Hoy & Laura Trott (kids). There’s your Olympic Legacy, Lord Coe…

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The river’s deep, the river’s wide, the river’s water is alive…

As I may have recently mentioned, we just spent a terrific holiday in SW France, where it seems that (utterly unlike the UK) the summer of 2012 has been unseasonably hot and dry. While we were there, the temperatures were consistently above 32°C/90°F and on several days reached 38°C/102°F. We stayed in a gorgeous little cottage whose only drawback was that it had no pool. But it didn’t take us long to discover the many local opportunities to cool off…

Driving the roads around this area, it’s not uncommon to see cars crammed into a layby or parked on the verges, or sometimes turning off down unmarked tracks. Almost invariably these are the locations for river swimming, and we discovered a few favourites very quickly, three of which are indicated on the map.

Off to the West of this map (about 20 minutes drive) is a lovely man-made lake at Puivert, where the local council has brilliantly created a sandy beach, set up a café, marked out areas for safe bathing and supplied a lifeguard on duty 6 days a week, and even built a diving jetty. But no toilets that normal humans would want to use. Still, the water is warm and the views are gorgeous.

Also off the bottom right of the map, on the road between Rennes-les-Bains and the tiny village of Sougraigne, is a fairly famous bathing spot known locally as La Fontaine des Amours. I’ve heard from different sources that this refers either to the shape of one of the pools formed by the river cascading down the valleys, or the fact that it’s a spot where two streams meet and become one. In any case, it’s almost impossibly lovely there, nestled below the road, overhung by steep hillsides of dense forest.

I pinched this photo from the netmefrance.com website. Thank you.

But because of this secluded, shady location, the water in La Fontaine is really, really cold. Even during this scorching summer, it moves too fast and never gets prolonged sunshine. Our younger daughter Eleanor was usually fine with wny pool, lake or river, but no sooner had she splashed into the deeper pool here than she screamed to get out. While we were there some local kids splashing around kept joking that they were turning into glaçons (ice cubes)…

The river at La Fontaine is the river Salz, so-called because it not too many miles upstream it bubbles out of the ground from a natural salt-water spring, although it’s barely noticeable to taste. Further downstream we found two lovely spots in the same river. At Rennes-les-Bains and close to the ruined Cathar castle at Coustazza, there are small concrete river crossings, just big enough for cars or (more likely originally) small farm vehicles and tractors. These bridges have been transformed into semi-effective dams, slowing the river flow just enough to create a pool deep enough for swimming.

The spot at Rennes-les-Bains was terrific, with easy access, a couple of benches nearby, and while it was just about deep enough for an adult to swim, it was also perfect for our children to splash about in safely. It seemed extremely popular with the locals, who would turn up for a late afternoon dip, and with walkers and cyclists to cool off.

Perhaps our favourite find was the spot at the top of this map, on the road North from Couiza up towards Limoux. A large layby on a sweeping bend in the road is the clue, and once you’ve scrambled down a short but steep path to the small beach, the river Aude awaits you.

There is easy shallow-water access and a small sand-bank on the near-side of the river. 50 yards downstream there’s an outcrop of rock for jumping (about 8-10 feet high). Better, though, just upstream the river narrows to a mini- set of rapids, which make for some exciting swimming for grown-ups in deeper water. And there are these amazing natural caves on the far side…

We loved swimming in the rivers and lakes of the Pyrenées – and are already trying to work out how we might go again next year. I’m not sure I would be brave enough in the UK, as the cold water of La Fontaine was only nearly bearable because the ambient air temperature was over 90ºF. River swimming was a revelation to me. If you’ve got a Mediterranean climate or a wetsuit I really recommend it.

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I love to hear your wondrous stories…

A quote I wanted to use for this piece illustrates its entire theme beautifully. My local and brilliant independent bookshop (of which more later) posted a line attributed to Albert Einstein:

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.

In order to check its authenticity I started hunting around the interweb, and found this much more evocative version..

A concerned mother once visited Albert Einstein to get his counsel on how to help her son become really good in maths. Exactly what was she to read for him to help him evolve into a prominent scientist?
“Folk tales,” said Einstein.
“Okay,” said the mother, “and after that?”
“More folk tales,” said Einstein.
“And after that?” the mother asked again.
“Still more folk tales,” answered Einstein.

Turning the sentiment into a story makes a world of difference. Introducing a concerned mother raises the stakes significantly, we become invested in what wisdom Einstein will bestow on her, and it makes his advice all the more surprising (and as such, more impactful).

I Reckon storytelling is a priceless skill that is essential to our humanity. From centuries of oral history to court jesters, from eyewitness news to inspirational orators, stories are crucial to our understanding of ourselves, our history and our origins. In recent weeks this has been brought home to me really clearly.

It’s squishy spaghetti…

A couple of days ago I went into my younger daughter’s class (5-7 year-olds) to read to them. They usually have “storytime” every day, where they gather round to listen to someone reading aloud. As is typical in many UK primary schools, the vast majority of teaching staff and assistants are female, so they only very rarely (if ever) hear a male voice. So this week the school invited Dads to come in.

I’ve always loved Roald Dahl stories. The mix of surreal fantasy, inventive wordplay, genuine excitement, threat and darkness is brilliant. So I was delighted to be reading The Twits. I love reading fantastical stories like this, as I can unleash my repertoire of silly voices and accents. We have a wonderful audio version of The Twits read brilliantly by Simon Callow, and my own interpretation borrows heavily from him.

It was fantastic to go to town on this, shrieking and cackling in front of a class of children, most of whom I didn’t know, and watch them respond with laughter and gasps, giggles and shouts. I read practically the whole thing, and have secretly hoped ever since that they went home asking their own parents to “do funny voices like Eleanor’s Daddy…”

Last weekend I was given a tremendous Father’s Day treat by my lovely wife and children to go to an intimate performance by The Bookshop Band. Part of a summer ‘festival’ organised by the wonderful, fabulous and profoundly brilliant Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, this was a fantastic 90 minutes, during which I was privileged to watch three brilliant musicians tell stories, and bring stories to life. The band’s songs are all inspired by books, usually key moments or characters, and they are beautifully crafted, shot through with humour, moving, and inventively arranged with all sorts of instruments and striking vocal harmony.

This what I mean…

or this…

I love everything about the Yellow-Lighted Bookshop’s ethos about trying to connect people with books, their stories and their writers. It’s always a pleasure to browse their shop and talk about books with the great staff and other customers. If they haven’t got something in, they can usually get it within 48 hours. They are everything that is human and vital about books that Kindles and e-readers can never be.

I love reading stories to my children. I love hearing them make up stories and role-playing with their Lego, or when they create their own books and illustrations. I love that Hannah has been inspired by Harry Potter and Inkheart and Jacqueline Wilson and Mr Gum. Stories fire our imagination, they help expand our concept of what could be possible, they enrich us.

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Talking ’bout my girl…

In the opening song of my all-time-favourite-musical-ever-ever-ever there’s a short exchange between two parents.

Did you see his school report? He got a C on his report!
WHAT?!?
We’ll have to change his school, the teacher’s clearly falling short…

The song “My mummy says I’m a miracle” brilliantly depicts insufferable parents and their (ahem) talented children. I am now joining those insufferable ranks. Forgive me while I sing the praises of my eldest daughter, Hannah.

Hannah is bright. She reads voraciously and sometimes it’s difficult to get a word in when she’s excited about something: partly because her imagination takes her off on tangents of tangents of tangents, and she struggles to remember what she started off talking about, partly because her brain evidently works faster than her mouth and she struggles to actually get the words out quick enough, partly because it’s just fun to listen to her.

But she has also been quite shy, often a perfectionist who collapses if she makes even a tiny mistake, she gets embarrassed when asked to ‘perform’ in public. She’s young in her school year (June birthday), and is quite happy in her own company, her imagination running riot, much to her own amusement…

This year (she’s 10 at the end of June) she has matured in a way that has made me very proud. Last year there was a Youth Theatre Musical performed in Tetbury. Most of the leading parts were taken by teenagers, but the chorus included Hannah and some of her classmates. She was adamant that she didn’t want a speaking part, she wanted to be in the background. It was quite a big surprise, therefore, when she announced this year that she wanted to audition for a more important part.

Smike is a musical written originally in the 1970s for the children at Kingston Grammar School, loosely based on the Charles Dickens story of Nicholas Nickleby. Hannah took the part of Smike, which certainly isn’t the largest part, but has plenty of lines, acting and three solo songs. She committed herself to rehearsals, and with seemingly only a small amount of active support from us, she was fantastic. We kept asking if she was happy with her lines, did she need to practise the songs, and she declared everything was alright. And indeed it was.

The part of Smike is a pretty sad one. An orphan who gets horribly beaten and abused at school, who spends most of the play alone. It wasn’t a very easy watch for me.

Thanks to John Rees for this great picture

As is increasingly common for me, it got pretty dusty in the hall when Hannah was singing, or being beaten up, or sat huddled in a corner of the stage which suddenly seemed huge and dangerous compared to her vulnerable smallness. She wasn’t perfect by any means, but this was her first time on stage in front of nearly 100 people. Her words were clear, her acting was decent, we believed in Smike. And we all cheered her at the end.

Alongside the fairly intensive rehearsals for this show, Hannah has also been preparing for her Grade I piano exam. Again, she’s not exactly Wolfgang Amadeus, but in the last few months her confidence and commitment at playing the piano has made a step-change. It feels like she’s realised she can play her pieces well, she’s started to work out and play song tunes by ear, and she actually practises her scales. She’s just received the results from her exam, passing with a strong Merit at 127/150. When she called me at work to tell me, all I got was shrieking and whooping down the phone.

What’s more, at the local Minchinhampton Music Festival recently there was a children’s day, when kids of all ages and all abilities on any instruments could play as part of a competition. Hannah actively wanted to play, despite having been reluctant to even play in front of me just a few months ago. Again in front of more than 50 people she played her pieces and did it pretty well.

My little girl is growing up. It is my privilege to be able to watch and guide her, and bask in her reflected glory as she does. She is a miracle.

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Don’t know much about history…

I Reckon Horrible Histories is the funniest show on television right now, on any channel.

Originating in 2009, it’s now in its 4th series, plus a few seasonal specials, a Prom concert in the Royal Albert Hall, and a transfer from the CBBC children’s channel to the flagship BBC1. Based on Terry Deary’s books, the concept has spawned countless magazines, CDs and more. It’s also the only children’s programme to win a British Comedy Award.

The latest series launched to much fanfare (in our house at least) last week, and it is hilarious. I’ve been recording every episode so I can watch them when I get home from work. The only other TV show I consider recording is the excellent but altogether different US drama Homeland. And so I’ve been laughing out loud every evening this week. One episode contained possibly the best 12 minutes of comedy I’ve seen in ages.

Cash in The Abbey was a brilliant explanation of Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries that parodied a daytime TV show, swiftly followed by Hide and Priest, depicting Priest Holes in the style of a game “that brings Protestants and Catholics together – only not in a good way”.

Then HH TV News ran a near-perfect explanation of the Ascent of Man with a manically excited (Peter Snow?!) reporter, Bob Hale. This ran straight into perhaps my favourite comedy song of all time.

If someone can find me a better-written, better-observed, better-performed, funnier and educational piece of television, I’ll eat my proverbial hat (unless it’s another HH show!).

The show evidently owes a great deal to Monty Python, and like its ex-stablemate on CBBC I’m Sorry I’ve Got No Head, it steadfastly does not treat its viewers like children. Jokes come thick and fast with all sorts of historical truths and complexities woven in, but at no point does it talk down to its viewers. It’s been criticised for a seemingly trivial approach that talks more about poo than history, but frankly, I Reckon that’s bol***ks. The Darwin song explains Natural Selection pretty well in under 3 minutes, and carries off a fabulous David Bowie pastiche at the same time. Their Kings & Queens song even panders to the rote-learning so favoured by certain politicians…

History is at the heart of every sketch and song, but that doesn’t stop the writing from being funny. The show switches between micro- and macro-themes, from the impact of poor Saxon diets on their poo to The Pilgrim Fathers’ settlements in The New World. They ape (adult) contemporary shows with nuanced parodies. This week alone, as well as Cash in The Abbey, Historical Apprentice pitted Team Neanderthal against Team Homo Sapiens, Mr Shouty Man fronted an advertorial for the Victorian Great Western Railway and Queen Elizabeth I was seen online dating and in Oh Yea! magazine. And I really like this old episode of Historical Wife Swap.

But I think it’s the songs that get me the most. Wonderfully written and performed, with fantastic references to the originals, most of which are of my generation rather than my daughters. There are loads of these all over Youtube, and you could spend a very happy time seeking them out. But for your delectation I’ve already done this, and here are a few of my favourites…

Dick Turpin – a truly dandy highwayman?

The Aztec Priests (nice teeth)

Spartan High School Musical

Spitfire Pilots – Take That, Hitler!

My Name is… Charles II

I Reckon you could do a lot worse than setting your recorder CBBC on Fridays at 5pm. I will be, and my evening will be more than a little bit happier, sunnier, sillier for it.

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