Exams!! A mini rant, or perhaps more of a parental worry-fest.

Exams! - the only thing (apart from something ghastly happening to one of my children) I regularly get nightmares about: ones that wake me up in a cold sweat just at the point when the paper has been turned over, read from start to finish and I realise that I can't do any of it!

Best part of an exam - the moment when you are told to stop writing. Finished. Over. Complete. Followed rapidly by one of the very worst bits, when you leave the exam hall and everyone starts to gush about what they wrote and you start to subtract marks in your head for all the questions you got wrong. The only way to avoid this bit is to sprint from your seat and don't stop running until you are well and truly on your own. Then it might be necessary to embark on an expedition, or emigrate, at least until all the post exam chatter among your peers has died down. Alternatively, invest in ear plugs.

The next worst thing about exams - results day. You have just about convinced yourself and very probably your parents that maybe things weren't to bad, maybe you did just enough to get the good grades. Then inevitably, results day arrives. Perhaps you could still be abroad, preferably alone, stiff drink at the ready. You especially want to avoid being at the breakfast table and having an anxious audience all biting their lips, distractedly stirring and stirring the tea and watching you open that envelope. One particularly sadistic method of conveying results was used at my university and to this day there is still a part of that city that I struggle to walk past at this time of year, where exam results boards are displayed for all to witness the true folly of your efforts.

Then, just when you are getting on with your life and, apart from nightmares, putting exams firmly behind you, your kids start doing them! And they really matter! And sometimes they don't seem to matter quite as much to your kids, or to their friends. So now in addition to exam fear, you add in an unhealthy dollop of anxious, fretting, but trying-terribly-hard-not-to-fret parent and what happens - the kid gets more and more chilled and the nightmares come back with a vengeance!

All the above is true, but maybe I have been lucky - things have generally turned out right (apart from that History exam when I missed out a whole essay, and a resit (oh dear) I had to do at university). And kids so far have done fine and made me proud. But they have exams tomorrow ... and I'm not sure how well I'm going to sleep.

Comments

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn&#

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful. Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten!

Curlews, summer skies and walking in circles.

Summer skies over the Yorkshire Dales and my mind is set to rest mode. But that rest is not totally restful; there is a niggle ... a memory, a hint of childhood, something that unsettles slightly - a light brush stroke of discomfort; a gossamer breath of discombobulation and a 'Woah! Wait a moment!' moment of 'that's-not-right!' - we're about as far from the sea as it is possible to be in middle Britain and yet, I can hear the distinctive Peep! Peep! of oystercatchers and the piercing cry of curlew. Here - in the blue skies of the North Yorkshire dales and along the footpaths - and above the endless miles of drystone walls are birds that should be at the coast. Oystercatchers, with their distinctive red pliers attached to their heads feed on - you've guessed it - oyster beds. All along the coastline of the British Isles, their distinctive cry is the call of summer. Drowned out somewhat by the banter of seagulls but sharp and

Walking The Dog

Search This Blog