Author Archives: jon

Half-Arsed Plundering

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A very gay man stopped us in the street on the way home from swimming this evening, to inform us, in a very dithery manner, that he had just been robbed. I don’t know whether it was his excessive gayness, or the aftershock, that cause him to be so vexed. When we asked him if we could help, he trotted off into the night, apologising.

I can only assume, if he were telling the truth, that the robbers were equally as confused, since they forgot to despoil our little homosexual friend of his plastic bag full of alcohol.

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Diving Distinction

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It was the culmination of Freya’s current swimming school course today, and she came away with two badges.

The first is an octopus badge, or maybe “The Octopus”, which has no real meaning, being given to all the children at the end of the course. At best one could say it is a decorative memory of the thousand-odd crowns it costs for the eight lessons.

The second emblem Freya received was “The Grebe“, which required her to perform, three times, the following:

Jump into the pool
Swim underwater (meaning being pushed – not as severe as it sounds)
Having her eyes open under water

We’ve also been practising for the next badge, “The Blue Crab”, and she is not far from being able to complete it. The next class starts, conveniently, next Monday, so a few more weeks may see Freya coming home with another prestigious piece of metal.

The First Doubts

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My ‘sit back and wait’ approach took a turn for the worse today. Two children in Class 3 (who have a propensity for disturbing, taking control and drawing others into their little world) did what they are very good at, completely disrupting the majority of the lesson.

I expected the other, better-behaved, children to take it upon themselves and put these two in their place, but most of them just seemed resigned to the situation. This may have been my fault, scince I’d told them to ignore any stupid behaviour.

I’m trying to take a hands-off approach, hoping that the children can become a self regulating entity. I know this may take a long time, and may not even work; I need to come up with a solution so as not to lose the trust of those who are well-behaved.

This degradation happened in half-group English. The previous lesson we had together was with the whole class, where the self-regulation appeared to work. Was this due to the number of well- versus ill-behaved children being larger? Can peer pressure really be the solution to the problem? This is, in effect, what I am relying on.

It’s Not A Zoo, Honest

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I woke up this morning, not with a Blues song forming in my head, but with an idea to something luxurious with Freya on this untypically-Blues warm, sunny day.

After looking at our available options we decided to take her to Skansen, the oldest open-air museum and, less morally appealing, zoological park.

There were many memorable moments of the day’s outing, and those which stand out most of all include Freya’s involvement in snake and spider stroking, and her first pony ride. I say pony, though it was probably some rock-hard Icelandic bear-baiting variety; to my untrained eyes it looked like a pretty pony. Freya enjoyed it immensely, regardless its origins.

We saw snakes, koalas (sleeping, of course), alligators (or were they crocodiles?), enough monkeys to complete two Shakespear novels, elk, seals, rats, loads more animals I know the names of, and quite a few I don’t.

We also found vegan hamburgers at one of the fast-food shacks, where Jo managed to get stung two times by one of the many, many wasps (disappointingly, not one of the listed animals).

Freya came away, not only with a valuable experience, but a plastic animal: a replica poisonous frog. Sure, she could have chosen any of the large cuddly toys on display, but Freya wanted a small plastic amphibian that would ooze nocuos liquid as soon as croak at you.

I’m happy to have forewent my vegan stance on visiting such places, because it was arse cool.

An Unexpected Afternoon In The Park

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We hadn’t planned to do much today. The weather was inclement, and (I later found out it wasn’t the case) Wolves were playing W.B.A.

After lunch we stepped out into the rain and, umbrellas in hand, made our way to the local second-hand shop. On our departure Freya saw two worms in a puddle by the steps to the shop. We carefully took them from their watery grave and placed them in the nearby grass.

For most of the remaining journey home Freya was taken by any further worms we found making their way over the footpath, and we helped two or three more to relative safety. All in all, over ten worms were sighted.

During our worm safari we passed a lake. Freya spotted some ducks paddling on the shore opposite, and it was then I remembered the bread Freya had stuffed in her nut box the evening before. Birds, bread and child can only mean one thing, excluding a chicken burger at mCdONALD,S: feeding the birds.

A simple afternoon’s browsing led to a very enjoyable adventure in the park. It’s interesting how easy it is to forget how much pleasure is obtainable from the most simple of experiences. Something that our bank account appreciates.

N.B. The fear of worms is known as vermiphobia