A weekend at The Barn

Trouble at Cowarts

Do you High School Musical Too?

What a parent allows their child to watch, film or television-wise, is very much a matter for the individual. (And that is once you get over the question of if and how much they’re going to watch in the first place. Why is it that people without TVs are so holier than thou? Anyway.)

I loved that all too brief, innocent time when all mine watched was CBeebies. We loved the Teletubbies, Rubbadubbers and Balamory. But they graduated to Charlie and Lola, and then to CBBC and Blue Peter, MI High and Raven.

They like being terrified by Dr Who and they also clamour for Top Gear (and anything with Richard Hammond in it.) Then there are the other kids’ channels they switch on: PopGirl, for example, with Saddle Club, which is okay. Girls and ponies. But girls and ponies and fancying boys, which seems a little too old for girls of seven and five.

One thing we don’t have and which H7 wants is the Disney Channel. The wanting it started when she was infected with the craze for High School Musical by other children at school. One minute I hadn’t heard of Troy and Gabriella, the next their faces were on t-shirts, socks and pants. It was something we tried to ignore at first, but it seemed to be everywhere. So we gave in and bought the film on DVD and I have to admit, we all rather enjoyed it. Where Grease (arguably the original High School Musical) was about Sandy turning from a wholesome swot into a skin-tight trousered highly made up sex bomb with a cigarette, HSM (as we soon learned to call it) celebrated youngsters expressing their individuality, kicking over rigid cliques and learning the power of friendship (in a musical way).

HSMs two and three continued this theme, with the ongoing relationship between Troy and Gabriella supplying the boy-meets-girl element. But is it a wholesome enough thing for one’s little ‘uns to be watching? H7 tells me she has friends who aren’t allowed to watch HSM, which is fair enough, but it’s a difficult force to resist. They love the songs (as do I, they’re upbeat poppy songs and a vast improvement on ‘What’s the story in Balamory’ which makes my ears bleed.) But it all seems a bit grown up for such little girls as mine, still in primary school (or in R5’s case, only just in primary school). Not High School at all, not yet…

HSM3 came out last year and was the first to be shown in cinemas and we resisted all efforts on the part of H7 and R5 to go and see it. Instead we waited for the DVD this February and now thanks to Think Parents we have it on Blu-ray too. (You can see every bead of sweat on young Zac Efron’s face. Very disturbing for the peri-menopausal woman. Ahem.)

Oh we love it, of course we do. Yes it’s all about “big kids” and growing up and leaving school, something mine will have to face far away in the future (or tomorrow as it will probably seem to be). It’s about friendship and how it can be tested a times of stress and it’s about pulling together and supporting each other. It’s about how the frustrations of life can make you just want to scream. It’s also (alarmingly) about how, sometimes, you might have to consider that what your parents believe to be the best for you, might actually not be what’s best and you might have to grow up and make your own decisions. I wish I’d known that sort of stuff when I was 15 and doing my GCSEs.

I think most of that sort of subtext goes over H7 and R5’s little heads. They love Troy and Gabriella, Sharpay and Ryan and Chad and Taylor like they love some of  the “big kids” at school. But do they see them as role models? Who knows! What damage is this doing to their tiny minds? Should I worry? Need I worry? It seems harmless enough, they love the songs and they love Troy and Gabriella equally. Sigh. Now the big problem is Hannah Montana which H7, understandably, is drawn to. So far we have repelled it, but I’m not sure how much longer that will continue.

For those who haven’t got young children or who have only boys, here’s a clip:

What ice cream tastes like...

I said in my Saturday post that R5 and I were off to paint "what ice cream tastes like" and this (above) was her response.

She then moved onto an elephant.

Next a picture of her guinea pig Patchy. Then she had a bit of a 'moment' because it did not look like Patchy 'in real life', so we did this one between us, below, to learn to be a bit looser with painting and not so rigidly drawn to life-like pictures. (It's a flower garden, by the way, with a pond and rocks.)

All quiet on the home front.

It's a quiet day here today. Hedges have been trimmed, strimming has been, er..., strum, H7 is out Morris Dancing with her fellow Brownies (and I made her some brownies to take too, how witty.)

I have watered the garden and sighed over the garden (so many weeds!) and wondered where to put the bulls blood beetroot and the little gems that are desperate to get out into the big wide world. I have also been sighing over my woeful inability to germinate carrot seeds.

See there's only two! This is a bed which measures eight feet by four feet. I have now sown it twice and only these two have (so far) deigned to germinate. Four years ago this bed grew great fat carrots (a heritage variety I've forgotten the name of - Red Elephant or something like that). These are Nantes II and, frankly, I'm disgusted by their meagre efforts.

No such trouble with courgettes, though. These are my favourite variety, Genovese, a lovely pale green thin skinned courgette which I like to mix with a stripy Romanseque type. I've given up on the yellow ones as they always seem to be bitter.

The terrible twins. The one on the right is Lazarus who I wrote about in an earlier post. As you can see he has filled out a bit now. The other one is his big brother Bazarus. Both are getting a top up bottle of milk morning and evening. Their mum looks after them the rest of the time, but the poor love just couldn't get to grips with breast-feeding.

This is my new lawn and never before (in this household) has the mowing of a lawn been so eagerly anticipated. It's not quite long enough yet, but it's doing well. Last year (I'm embarrassed to say) Brian and the girls bought me a push along mower and a couple of boxes of lawn seed as a Mother's Day present (which I was very pleased about, I hasten to add. They bought me flowers and chocolates too.) It's taken a whole year to get to this stage and I can't wait to get my little mower out and persuade these new green shoots to tiller out and make a lovely thick lawn.

Now duty calls as I have promised R5 a session with my watercolour paints. Inspired by Mark on Views from the bike shed, we're going to have a go at painting 'what ice cream tastes like'.

Hello Pot, meet Mr Kettle

I have been watching the fiasco of MPs expenses unfold and something has struck me. Perhaps it was the smugness of the Daily Telegraph journalists on the TV news, perhaps it was the way they were positively humming with the enormity of the story (Journalist thinks: This is MY Watergate, am I Woodward or Bernstein?), perhaps it was the way you could see them thinking of their place in history, of how their names would be remembered forever more, perhaps it was the way you you see them thinking Who's going to play me in the movie...?

Perhaps. I'm not going to comment on the whos or whys of the MPs and their expenses (for that see Rotwatch), but I am going to comment on the journalists and the way the story has been dripping out like oil into a big, nasty, stinking slick.

It reminded me of the BBC version of State of Play starring David Morrissey as ambitious MP in hot water, John Simm as investigative broadsheet journalist and Bill Nighy as his editor. The fascination in that brilliant political thriller (better than the current film with Russell Crowe which is set in the USA) is the dialogue between the hacks and Westminster. Equally as fascinating is the constant request from the team of journalists to Nighy: "Can I put this on expenses?"

Call me a cynic, but also call me an NCTJ-qualified journalist. I well remember Tuesday afternoons, after the paper had gone to press. Out would come the expenses claim forms.

"How far is it from here to X?" a reporter would ask, pen poised over a mileage claim.

"Oh, about ten miles," someone would suggest. The reporter would add a bit for 'getting lost' and 'parking'. It would go on the form as 20.

Then there was college where I met other trainee journalists far from the office. They'd walk to college and pick up discarded bus tickets to send in with their expenses claim forms. The hotel bill, which they paid by cheque would be one figure for the form, then the hotelier would give them cash in hand as 'change'. Then there was the taxi driver who, when I asked him for a receipt, gave me a fistful to claim for. (I didn't.)

I'm not alleging in anyway that any journalists involved in reporting this expenses fiasco have themselves made excessive claims, but I'd bet they know someone who has. True, we haven't voted for these journalists, they don't have to be 'whiter than white' like our honourable elected representatives, but I can't but wonder if there could possibly be a bit of 'pot calling the kettle black' here.

It's raining again...

It is raining a bit. Okay, it's raining a lot, pouring in fact and, like any normal person I'm out in it getting thoroughly wet. Except I'm not like any 'normal' person at all. All the 'normal' people, like the vicar, for example, are in their cars, nice and warm and dry.

I'm out because I'm running. I hear a car approaching from behind, so I pull in to the side and wait for it to pass. But it doesn't, it stops, the driver's window descends and the (very lovely) vicar ask sweetly: "Do you want to be out in this? Because, if you don't it'd be no trouble to run you home..."

"No really, I'm fine, I like it," I say.

The vicar looks astonished. "Are you sure? It's no trouble, really."

"No, it's really kind of you but..." I say from the depths of my water resistant running jacket which I am thinking of taking off because I'm too hot.

"You are sure? Really?" She's long given up on trying to save my soul, but she's not ready yet to give up on saving my body. Does she really want a soaking wet, slightly muddy, sweaty runner in her lovely warm, dry, pristine car? I might splash the embroidered vicarly robes she's wearing (she's in the full Dibley works and fabulous they are too.) It seems she does. "It's really no trouble," she repeats, hopefully.

"No I'm fine, honestly," I laugh, as if to prove the point. The vicar smiles back at such madness, gives up and drives away.

I take off my jacket and run on. Big droplets of water hit my arms, sizzle and steam off. I run on, in my own, slow, splashy ploddy way for another hour or so and arrive home, six and a half miles later, convinced I'm dry, but actually soaking wet (that's technical fabrics for you - they wick, they're great.)

It's happened before. We were due a farm inspection, Tir Gofal or something. Granny in the annexe was dealing with it (paperwork is G in the A's department, heavy work is Brian's department, I'm somewhere in the middle with the children.)

There's a severe weather warning. Really heavy rain, especially in the Welsh hills, says the weather person. Some localised flooding. Just perfect for a run (actually she didn't say that bit). I splash down the road towards the hills, water sheeting around me. The road, sloping towards me, is running with flood water. The water is above the height of my ankles, at another point it is calf-deep. I approach the T-junction. A car turns towards me, stops, the driver looks at the state of the road and thinks better of it. It's the Welsh Office farm inspector.

"I've just seen your daughter," she tells G in the A in a 'she's completely mad' voice.

"Yes," says G in the A, in an 'I know she is' voice.

But oh, there's something magical about running in the rain. The air is moist and cool and easy to breathe. You don't get so hot or so sweaty-salty. Everywhere is washed and shiny. There's something magnificent about being out in the elements. The hills look fabulous, peeking out from under heavy clouds, all brooding and dark.

Coming in to get warm and dry is lovely too. You don't get that lovely snuggly warmed up feeling when it's hot and dry and sunny. That's when you can't get cool again, when you're hot, sticky, burned and uncomfortable. Sunshine makes you parched and gritty.

I know I've moaned about it raining in the past. I know I moaned all last summer that it's less fun when it's raining, but only when I'm not running. When I'm running it can rain all it likes.