When boys will be boys. And girls?

Boys are ... well? Just boys.

Show them a muddy puddle and they get into it; a bowl full of food and they ask for more; another boy and they preen and strut before launching themselves at each other; the whiff of a bird and they happily sniff around following her trail all day ... I am of course talking about boy dogs.

Some boys - the two legged sort - while having fewer disgusting habits than their canine friends (Bertie Baggins although handsome and loveable has some truly stomach-churning tastes in 'food' - I only deign to refer to it as food because he eats it. And yes - I am referring to poo), do display a tendency toward remarkable mind-temporarily-unhinged-from-body moments. For example, walking along the top of six foot walls; leaping into pools of water of uncertain depth; jumping out of windows - first-floor windows, okay it was onto an elevated grass bank, but what if he'd missed?; catching thrown grapes in their mouths; playing the hold-your-hand-in-a-candle-flame game where last one out wins (... a burnt hand?); pirouetting on top of post boxes; leapfrogging over street bollards which don't give way when you miss and land on top of them; standing near a cliff edge and falling off the cliff edge. And laughing at distraught female relatives when the cliff turns out to be only a very small cliff and has a step jutting out beneath it; piling up all the loo rolls to make a karate totem pole for Littlest to slice through (actually, this was fun and nothing did get broken); walking on frozen lochs ... I could go on, but without all this risk-taking behaviour that has mothers' hearts leaping into their mouths, we would have no Formula One, no rugby, no downhill skiing, no history of film special effects stunt-men, and no women brave enough to follow men into these dangerous but enormously enjoyable activities.

I think the problem here is that boys see what they want to do and do it and then think about what could have gone wrong. Girls on the other hand see all the things that could go wrong first and as a result don't do it or do it cautiously - which negates the thrill and removes all the fun. Or am I guilty of being a mum? A mum who hopes her son has no aspirations to emulate Felix Baumgardner.

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