Sick with embarrassment

Saturday morning was Child 2's ballet class. I often meet up with a German friend there – her daughter is in the same ballet class. We thought we would dash to the supermarket while the children were dancing. While we were shopping, suddenly they announced the time. Now, they never normally do that, right? So I was making facetious comments in German, when suddenly my friend said, 'But isn't it Remembrance Day?'. Suddenly the penny dropped – 11 o'clock on 11th November! Everyone around me was observing the two minutes' silence and I was chattering in German.

Is it more embarrassing to have people think that you're a foreigner who doesn't know British customs, or to have people think you're a German who doesn't care about the war dead, or to be a British person being taken for a German who doesn't care about the war dead, or... I was very embarrassed. Especially as the same friend and I had been at choir practice together the night before, rehearsing a beautiful and moving short choral setting of Laurence Binyon's lines:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.


The children both threw up on Sunday night, possibly as they couldn't bear the embarrassment of their thoughtless mother any more. Since then, I've been feeling either 1) guilty for leaving them with other people so I can go to my course or 2) frustrated as my feeble attempts to amuse them at home fall flat and I fail to do any work on my assignment. They love watching Charlie and Lola on the internet but that means I have no laptop for working. Pen and paper? Too boring and practical (for me, not for them). Thank goodness for downloadable dress-up Charlie and Lola dolls and beautiful ballet videos (Swan Lake and a dance set to a German pop song) for an occasional change from children's DVDs.



I'm feeling intrigued by the new James Bond and might try to persuade Husband (in the interest of conversational topics, you understand) to try to book a babysitter to watch it some time while it's still in the cinema. I enjoyed the trailer – both this original and this non-original version of it. Is it just me, or does that seem a bit odd so close to Remembrance Day?



This post was previously published as a student blog for The Times online.

Still talking?

Beginning to study again has had some surprising and some obvious side-effects. Okay, I have no income, have fees to pay but still have to find the cash to pay a childminder. Despite that I'm not eligible for working families tax credit and generally have neither time nor money. I'm used to having to choose one or the other - but losing both is hard. There is an upside. Improved conversation!

Husband and I have been married for nearly ten years (yes, I know, I was a child bride) and seemed to have nothing to talk about any more. I don't mean that anything was wrong – we've just already had nearly all the deep conversations possible and know each other inside out. Conversation had been dwindling to sorting out who would do what around the house or with the children.

It's been quite a bonus to discover that my course and the things I'm learning about are putting some new ideas into my head that we can discuss. I'm also enjoying showing him my latest youtube discoveries – the Dove evolution video and a spoof version. (Thanks to Mary Ann Sieghart for the tip in her column.) The trouble is, then he knows I've not been glued to my books while he's been working hard to bring home the money... Time-wasting is a traditional student activity I suppose, as well as watching children's TV – but I have an extra excuse for that.)





When I've not been studying hard in front of youtube, I have been busy gathering things for child 1 to take into school. We lived in Freiburg, by the Black Forest in Germany, last year for a year (more new topics of conversation) and Child 1 went to kindergarten. 11 November is St Martin's day, celebrated in Germany with bonfires and children's lantern processions.

So we've taken a lantern, CD and songbook into school for her to tell her class all about it. She and I have also baked lots of traditional "Weckmänner" – gingerbread men without the ginger, made with sweet yeasted dough – for the class. Trouble is, I don't have enough containers for transporting them all. Trying to get us all to school by bike in one piece could be interesting – at least I'll have something to tell Husband when he gets home in the evening.

This post was previously published as a student blog on The Times online.