robinlawrence’s Space

You know that Bill Shankley quote about football and a matter of life and death?  Well scoring goals is the life-blood of the so-called beautiful game and, as someone who knows little about the whole thing, I can only assume that the earlier one starts playing and scoring the more beautiful the whole thing becomes.  

Trixie, now a fully fledged member of the under nine girls football team at school, is developing well considering.  Things to factor in  when analysing her development include lack of genetic footballing ability (blame the parents), the battle between enthusiasm and over-excitement when the ball comes near her (she is getting better, slowly)  and, the final hampering factor,  playing in a pair of running trainers (she can't tie laces yet and "we're not buying more shoes while you've got a pair that fit, my girl" (blame the parents).  

To aid her development and fuel her enthusiasm she is taking part in a Saturday morning coaching session along with the squad training on Thursdays.  Serious stuff.  Sadly lightning and rain stopped the planned play on Thursday when a match had been scheduled against a local rival school but The Girl Lawrence took it all in her stride, saving her energy for Saturday instead.  

Loving running around the training pitch with her friend Grace the two of them decided that rather than being midfielders they would become much more glamorous sounding 'miss-fielders.'  However early on in one of her practice games it appeared that she was playing as the last line of defence, putting in a few Mick Mills like tackles with a surety that Mr M would have been proud of.

In the course of the game though Trixie differed from Saint Mick in two ways: lack of moustache and forays to the front line.  Reminiscent of that other 1970s footballing hero, Roger Osborne, she found herself in the opposition area at just the right time and when one on one with the keeper powered the ball towards the goal with all her might.  The ball hit the outstretched leg of the keeper but the force of the Trixie drive took the ball over the line and into the inflatable mini-goal for a deserved one nil victory.  Much like Saint Roger of Osborne in the 1978 FA Cup Final she too was overcome with much emotion after scoring, but did not need, fortunately, to be substituted by a Mick Lambert wannabe with minutes to go.  The girl done good.  The round praising that she received from other parents watching matched the broadness of her grin.  

It would seem though that there was another important factor in helping Trixie to score.  She converted her only chance of the game at 1046 (local time, just in case anyone wondered what the big cheer was all about).  At 1043 Edwin and I had exited the school grounds to go to the neighbouring coffee shop for vital supplies and so we missed all the action and had to get it secondhand from Trixie and various parents, a la Messrs Lineker, Shearer and the other bloke.  Lesson learned?  If you want to score goals: get your Dad and brother out the way first.

For the past few weeks a common sight in Chateau Lawrence has been one of Trixie involved in intensive bouts of tooth wiggling.  She was over-joyed when she first discovered that she had a wobbly front tooth and made sure that she told everyone who she thought would be as excited as she was about the ever more precarious gnasher.  She was not satisfied with letting nature take its course and so took every opportunity to develop the most speedy and efficient exit strategy for the wobbly front number.  

Mid-morning on Sunday came and the four other Lawrence Clan members were greeted with cries of “It’s come out and there’s blood.”  A quick wad of tissue paper and the blood was stopped and then there was detailed examination of the tooth by all.  It was a mighty fine tooth and was sure to be something that The Tooth Fairy would be very pleased to collect.  Complete with happy grin Trixie continued with her day, as did the rest of us.

When bedtime came she carefully placed her tooth under her pillow, said goodnight, enjoyed a story and then it was time for lights out.  Both Lexi and I reminded ourselves of the importance of making sure that The Tooth Fairy arrived as we left Trixie's room and that was that.

All teachers know about the dreaded Sunday evening routine of lesson planning, diary checking and marking and this particular Sunday was no different.  Lexi and I went to bed, as usual, later than hoped for or planned.

As is the Lawrence Clan routine the morning alarm went off at 5.30am and we set about our ablutions, dressing, and waking up of children.  Trixie was unusually quick to wake when I put her light on and dived under her pillow at lightning speed.  Her speed was much faster than my brain, which put two and two together seconds after she fell into angered and disappointed tears announcing that the tooth fairy HAD NOT BEEN!  She had very definitely forgotten and Trixie was not amused.  She remained not amused for the rest of breakfast time, bag-packing time and, appropriately during teeth cleaning time.

Her annoyance had subsided a little during the drive to school, and she seemed to calm down a little bit more as I helped shift the blame for such an oversight to the Tooth fairy herself and tried to claim that she had simply got lost, or may have been delayed in the terrible KL traffic.  But nothing really seemed to cure Trixie’s crossness.

Getting out of the car we saw Trixie’s teacher walking with his family towards school at the same Monday morning pace as we were.  Trixie had to show her teacher her new gap before announcing the non-arrival of the Tooth Fairy.  Quick as a flash her teacher proved that your primary teacher always knows more than your Mum and Dad.

“When did the tooth come out, Trixie?” He asked. 

“Yesterday, and she didn’t come,” Trixie helpfully reminded everyone.

“Ah well that’s because she doesn’t work on Sundays,” came THE ANSWER from the sainted Mr C.

Immediately Trixie was satisfied and contented with that answer and her Monday could begin properly.  Needless to say The Tooth Fairy really did arrive on Monday evening, rested and recovered from her day off.

It would seem that the most important thing about public rules here in Malaysia is that they should be ignored at all costs, except of course when they should be obeyed.  The biggest challenge is of course knowing what rules should be ignored and rules should be obeyed and that can only be learned through experience.  Consistency is not important, neither is parity.  Rules are often far more serious than that, except of course when they are not important and can be ignored.

Today Lawrences had a day out at the seaside by driving to the area of coastline near Morib.  Going to the seaside is quite a mission at the best of times and takes particular planning when the temperature is tropical and it is also the rainy season.  Dealing with the latter was easy: we simply decided that if it rained we would get wet.  Done.  The heat, and in particular the sun and possible paddles in the sea needed more thinking abut including plenty of sun cream and swimming t-shirts.  Then there is the issue of what is de rigeur when approaching the beach in non tourist beach areas.

Our main concern was soon swept aside when we noticed that the tide was very much out at Morib, and if it had been in there would have been little of the golden stuff to frolic on anyway.  Instead the children enjoyed flying a cheap kite and playing with a cheap and cheerful rentable bubble making kit.  Just the kind of thing you expect to find at the seaside.

Needing cooling off we later drove 5km southward along the coast in search of better beach options and found the GOLD COAST Morib Resort and Water Park.  Offering slides into a small complex alf water pools it seemed to be just the place for five hot Lawrences.  Waving a smiling we drove past security guards whose main job appeared to be to complicate traffic flow and found a place to park down one side of the seven storey building before decamping and setting off to buy tickets.

Buying the tickets was easy, understanding the rules of the place was a bit less straightforward though.  Fortunately we have lived here for almost three years and so know that the default setting for detailed rules is, if in doubt, take your shoes off and ignore the rules, just like everybody else.  While we didn’t sit at the side of the pools and join the many families eating food (despite rules to the contrary) nor did we all don everyday clothes instead of the must be worn swimming attire (lots of folk were in everyday leisure clothes) and we also carefully ignored the sign that said no swimming we did rather fall foul of a curious t-shirt rule, that was not advertised anywhere, but was almost rigorously enforced.

One of the covered water tubes was policed by a very large Indian bloke who made sure that everyone who was covered by this unwritten rule obeyed it.  Seemingly everyone, when sliding down the tube had remove their t-shirt.  No explanation as to why this was was offered but everyone had to follow it.  There were certain exceptions though.  Men didn’t have to remove their t-shirts completely, they could simply take their arms out and then wear their shirt like a necklace.  If the t-shirt was a swimming approved t-shit that was fine, or if it was worn by a woman that was also fine and did not need removing and there was also the option, as I discovered, of removing only one arm from one’s shirt and still being passed as safe to slide.  Quite why this rule had been introduced was anyone’s guess as headscarf wearing women shot down the tube without the need to uncover as did a bloke wearing glasses, but no shirt, was passed a fit to slide, despite another sign banning the wearing of glasses.

Anyway a fun time was had by all, we weren’t asked to leave and various smokers watched on all puffing away merrily despite the no smoking policy.

I have just voted in the General Election.  I had to.  I have voted in every UK General Election that I have been registered to vote in and see it as something of a duty, even though the whole, highly flawed** process needs reforming.

About three months ago I started the Overseas Elector registration process by filling in the online forms.  Almost immediately I got a reply saying that I needed to prove who I was by getting someone else to vouch for me.  The fact that I stood in the Wolverhampton South West General Election of 2010 and had been a Wolverhampton Councillor from 2007 to 2011 didn’t assist my application in any way.  I still needed to prove that I was THE Robin Lawrence.  But only certain people, apparently were qualified to prove that I was Robin Lawrence.  Those people had to be registered Overseas Electors already and sign my proof of me-ness form to say that they were an OE.  Various kind people offered to assist me, some of them, interestingly, were people who I had never met and had no idea who I was, but I eventually settled on the kind help of my colleague, the head of maths.  Duly completed I posted the form when we were back in GB on holiday at Easter.  On 11th April I received a letter confirming that I had been accepted  on to the OE register.  Marvellous.  All I had to do was wait for the ballot paper to arrive and then send it back.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

On Thursday it arrived.  Hooray!  It had taken almost two weeks to travel from Wolverhampton to Kuala Lumpur and, of course there were several buts….

Edwin and I didn’t get home until 10.30pm on Thursday due to his dance lessons, Friday was the Labour day National Holiday and therefore post offices were closed.  Also Monday is a holiday too.  The postal vote had to be back in Wolverhampton South West HQ by Thursday at 10.00pm.   If I wanted to vote I would either have to deliver the ballot paper in person or use the services of DHL, whose office was also closed on Friday.

To cut a long story short I have just visited the local DHL office and paid RM155 to post the ballot paper with a guaranteed delivery on Thursday daytime.  I did, briefly dabble with he idea of not voting, but decided that it was too important* not to vote.

*This is quite a significant asterisk.  For the past 20+ years Wolverhampton South West has been a "Chuckle Brothers" constituency.  Party A has held the seat until they have handed it over to party B who, in turn, has handed it back to party A and thence back to party B and so on.  This “To me, to you, to me, to you.” approach to democracy really irritates me.  Wolverhampton South West should not be a marginal it should be a safe seat for one party and return a person representing that same party election after election.  The main reason that it does not do that is because the incumbent MP, whether that be from party A or B has never worked hard enough to secure the seat for their party.  Before the 2010 General Election the incumbent was, in campaigning terms, invisible.  No leaflets came through our door advertising their brilliance, the MP rarely featured in the local newspaper and never seemed to lead or do anything of any significance locally or nationally.  It was no surprise that he lost in 2010, to be replaced by the representative of party B who followed his predecessor act of invisibility and ineffectiveness.  Current predictions suggest that the representative of party A will win on Thursday, largely because he is not a member of party B.  I have voted for party C, mostly on principle, but also because the other two have made such little effort to secure what should have been theirs and so do not deserve my tiny portion of democracy.

** … in a flawed system it is frustrating to think that my vote for party C will, in effect count for nothing.  I know that party C have absolutely no chance of winning the seat and therefore my views will not be represented in any way for the next five years, should I, at anytime, chose to move back and live in Wolverhampton South West.  If only there was a much fairer system of voting that shared out the representative seats across the whole country along the lines of proportional representation then my vote would have currency and the election would be fair.  First past the post is the most effective way of measuring races, but not the most effective way of measuring the views of the population.

It is hard to remember the unimportant stuff when you are a year seven boy.  Your head is full of all the important stuff like what you have got for lunch, Guinness world records and how many bubbles are on the best glass of the tarik.  The unimportant stuff includes things like homework, packing all the right stuff for the day and, today’s big challenge, water bottles.

As regular readers will know Edwin has gone through more snack boxes, lunch boxes and water bottles than most people do in a lifetime during his short stay in Malaysia. As Edwin knows he has also bought more replacement boxes and bottles than he hoped he would ever buy too.  Recently though he has improved a little and has stopped losing so many, maybe the message is getting through?  But thanks to today’s happenings I am beginning to understand his new modus operandi.  After school he arrived in Drama land ready-ish to set off for his evening dance lesson in central KL.  He was on-time and in the right place.  All good.  Knowing that he drinks through gallons of fluid at dance lessons I asked him the reasonable question: had he filled up his bottle.  No, he had not.  He had not brought it with him today?   Apparently, no.  That was a sure-fire way not to lose it I suppose, but that did not solve his impending water problems.  Fortunately Dramaland is place where lots of children lose water bottles so, on my instruction, he borrowed one from the lost property collection.  Standing next to the water cooler in the Dreamland office he diligently washed and cleaned it in the Dramaland sink, I filled my water bottle and we set off.  All was well, I thought.

Not so.

The great man had somehow managed not to remember the final part of the process: filling the newly borrowed and lovingly washed, bottle with water.  How did he expect to quench his thirst, I wondered.  He told me that he hadn’t thought about that.

There was plenty of water about this morning, thanks to a very heavy rainy season storm.  Normally in the rainy season it pours between 4.00pm and 8.00pm for some or all of those hours.  So this morning was unusual.  The downpour meant dashing from the car to the school entrance, allowing me the opportunity to observe with a group of year ten girls that such weather played havoc with my hair.  

The other factor affected by rain this morning was that it stopped bollard man doing his important daily duties.  Bollard man is, as the name suggests, a security guard who is in charge of moving a specific bollard, specifically between the hours of 6.30 and 7.30am,  that carefully blocks the path of traffic leading to the car park neighbouring my school.  Due to my school not having enough parking I and thirty other drivers have been allocated car park passes for this handy facility and so use it everyday.  Great.  However fellow motorists and I have to wait for bollard man to move the bollard, the bollard that blocks our way into the car park before we can enter, drive up to the barrier, yes the barrier, flash our car park pass and gain entrance.  Ever diligent, the bollard man obviously moves the bollard for all cars that want to drive up to the barrier begging the question of why bollard man is there in the first place given that he moves the bollard for every car.  I am sure that if I asked the relevant authorities this obvious question the answer would be something like “He is there to move the bollard.”   Anyway he wasn’t there this morning and neither was the bollard and there didn’t appear to be any traffic crisis because of the combined no show due to the weather.  All very strange.  

In January I opened a door.  

Quite a normal, I thought courteous, thing to do under the circumstances.  However the opening of that particular door set in train a series of unfortunate events.

The door that I opened was the door to Kuala Lumpur Dancer’s Association's (KLDA's) rehearsal room, where Edwin was having one of his weekly dance lessons.  The door has a coded keypad on the outside and I thought, seeing as the dancer on the outside of the door was struggling to get it open, I would help by pressing the release button on the inside, thereby being nice.  At the time I was doing some school work on my school iPad (other devices are available) and so approached the door with due care.  As I pressed the release button the iPad slipped out of its aged, school approved case and landed with one of the corners of the iPad making contact with the concrete floor.  I examined the iPad’s screen and found it to have cracked.  Arse.  

I knew that my school had insurance and that repairs could be carried out, so I did not worry, deciding instead to be very cross.  I may have said a naughty word or three. 

Next day at school I set in motion the process of getting the device repaired.  Ten days later a colleague sent me an online form to fill in and promptly, at least ten days after that, I filled it in.  Weeks went by and nothing happened.  I carried on using the iPad, complete with cracked screen, for all the daily and weekly tasks such as lesson planning, showing videos to my classes and recording and assessing student work.  

As the Easter holiday approached, and nothing further had been mentioned about the requested repairs,  I thought that I should really start making things happen.  On the last day of term I took the iPad, still with its cracked screen to the IT department and they agreed to get it repaired.  “We will have to send it off,” a nice colleague said.  The world over these words, “send it off,” means anything from “this will take years to repair” to “you will never see this again” and Malaysia is no different.  

Over the two week Easter holiday all Lawrences were traveling England for a visit to family and friends and I had, relatively cheaply, booked flights with the mighty Vietnam Airlines.  Lexi and I's schools' holiday dates did not completely overlap so we found ourselves having to travel in a separated fashion: the kids and I first, followed a week later by Lexi.  I had plenty of marking and planning to do over the amusingly titled ‘break’ and decided to pack my laptop so that I could access my marking as well as my planning.  Having heard lots of stories about laptops being stolen from the overhead storage lockers inside airplanes I decided to pack the laptop in my case, padding it carefully in the middle of warm trousers, and securing the case with a tight strap.  Normally I would have taken my school iPad instead, but you see there had been a problem when I opened a door to KLDA and …

All went well on the flight, apart from the connection in Ho Chi Minh City being an hour late departing, and we thus arrived in Gatwick later than planned, but with just enough time to get our connecting train.  Children and I had to rush, but we did make our connections.   The children and I arrived at my parents’ house 27 hors and 27 minutes after leaving our KL house, tired, but pleased to have arrived.  We lunched, chatted and then unpacked.

Sadly someone had already begun the unpacking of my suitcase, without me asking for their help.  My laptop was not inside.  A thought flashed through my mind, maybe I had been an idiot and left it at home.  A call to Malaysia and Lexi proved that I had not been forgetful.  My laptop was well and truly gone.

And what was that the result of?  Opening a door.  If I had not opened that door to KLDA then I would not have dropped my iPad, it would not have needed repairing, I would not have taken my laptop with me when traveling and so it would not have been stolen.  

Naturally I reported the theft to Vietnam Airlines (“You need to fill i the right form, Sir”), my school (“you need to fill in the right form, Robin”) and the KL police (“I will fill the right form for you after I finished this level of candy crush, lah.)  Being an optimist and the sort of person who opens doors for other people I am hopeful that Vietnam Airlines will offer some compensation and that my school’s insurance policy will cover the theft.  If both of these fail then. well, let’s hope they do work.

I hold out no hope of the laptop ever seeing the light of day with me again.  I hope the thief appreciates the hassles they have caused.  I had backed up most of the files, though of course not all of them.  

If you do happen to see a thief with my laptop, (Macbook Pro, school machine number 1251) then take it back from them and give it to me, please, remembering, of course to hold the door open for the criminal in question.

(PS  You might like to know that the dancers who entered KLDA and were part of setting this whole sorry tale off were not harmed in any way during the writing of this blog.)

Following a tip off from another teacher it would appear that I am able to vote in the upcoming UK General Election.  I read all the necessary forms and details before answering key questions on a on-line form.  Within in 24 hours my application to vote had been accepted, all I had to do was to apply to Wolverhampton City Council for a postal vote.  However there were two big challenges that faced me before being able to do that: printing and posting the form.

A while ago we had a new all singing, all dancing printer installed in the office.  The old printer used to do old fashioned things like print documents when you sent them to print from ones laptop without delay.  However in the fast changing world that we live in this was deemed to not be progressive enough and so an ID badge system was installed instead.  All one has to do now to print is to send the document to print, switch the printer off energy saving mode, scan one’s ID card on the scanner, bemoan the slowness of the thing, press the profile button, wait while the printer detects the document, swear loudly, press the refresh button, swear loudly again, remind the computer that it should be printing, put the kettle on, press refresh again, and eventually out comes the printed document, often printed on both sides of the paper because I had forgotten to press the correct button. Naturally the printing of the postal vote form followed the above procedure.

Having filled in the forms and found an envelope all I had to do next was buy a stamp.  Conveniently today is Monday, an obviously good day to post letters, and also a good day for travelling into central KL for Edwin’s weekly ballroom dance lesson.  Equally conveniently there a whopping great Pos Malaysia depot right next to the station.  There were loads of different places and offices on show, none of which appeared to sell stamps so I asked one uniformed Pos Malaysia bloke where we could buy a stamp.  He told me to "go to floor two, over there.”  I had been caught out like this before, believing what someone in a uniform tells me, so asked another person, in a different office who replied "go to floor two, over there.”  We found a lift and found floor two and even found over there, which was a highly polished, gleaming post office with loads of counters and staff everywhere.  Bingo.  The immediate snags that faced Edwin and I though were the various benches, with various people sitting on them waiting to be served.  We printed off a ticket number and studied the “next number” screen.  Our ticket read 6132.  There were three, four figure numbers on display, the highest number on display read 5800.  Confusingly our ticket told us that the number before ours was 6123.  Not able to make much sense of the displays and tickets, but looking at the blank a vacant faces on the waiting masses and the blank faces on the staff behind the counters busy trying to look as if they were doing something I knew we would be in for a long wait.  Clutching the ticket we explored.  We found a car tax and insurance office.  We found an automatic stamp label printing service, with no information about how much a letter to GB was.  We found post boxes.  Finally we found the philately counter.  It was worth a try.  Amazingly the smiling person was quite happy to sell us souvenir, pretty stamps, priced at RM2 and we left the counter pleased not to be part of the waiting with the crowds.  As we left that particular part of the PO I took a quick look back, just in case i wanted to remember where to buy stamps in the future.  There was a sign above reading “My Stuff.”  Splendid personal service.

Yesterday was a landmark day for Trixie: her first school football match.  Initially, for some reason, I thought that it was an away game meaning lots of complicated journeys to support The Girl Lawrence (TGL) and her fellow players but, in spite of the school’s transport department arranging coaches, it was a home fixture.  Just before 3.30pm I took my place in the stands to watch a very particular version of the beautiful game along with various other parents and siblings of the players.

Trixie and eleven other small year three and four girls dashed onto a carefully marked out half-sized pitch and warmed-up by busily bouncing around their teacher-coaches.  One of the team decided that the best way to get into the zone by doing a series of cartwheels while others checked their shin-pads and pony tails before the game kicked off.

Trixie did not make the starting line-up, but was eagerly waiting for her big introduction, as one of the many rolling substitutions.  However disaster struck before TGL could make her first entrance: the opposition scored a goal!  It wasn’t a classic, but it did rather sum up the way the game was played.  Somehow the ball got kicked towards the home goal and 10 of the 14 players on the pitch all charged towards it.  When they arrived some jumped up and down with excitement, others looked at the ball, the goal or the supporters and some swung various feet in the direction of the ball.  A foot connected with the ball, the home goalkeeper looked up, grinned broadly and the ball trickled across the line.  There was an outbreak of cheering and jumping up and down.

Soon after Trixie made her enthusiastic entrance.  Easily recognized as the only girl wearing running shoes instead of football boots and grey and pink socks with hearts on she quickly applied the get-stuck-in approach to the game.  There was going to be none of this dribbling and skills stuff where she was concerned.  She charged off towards the ball, quickly joined by almost all the other players and swung her legs furiously, occasionally making contact with the ball.  Wherever the ball went, she went.  Rushing around she quickly became even more identifiable thanks to her bright pink face. 

The match lasted four periods of ten minutes and by the end of the time 24 sweating and smiling small girls shook hands with each other, all having had a great time.  Ok one team scored three goals and the other one didn’t, but who cares about the scores really?  They all seemed to have loved it.   There may be a long way to go before the team gets really competitive, but by the looks of the first match it will a great fun journey getting there.

Before the match I helped out by being a zoo-keeper, as you do when you are a Drama teacher.  A few weeks ago I ran a training session about how to use role-play when questioning students in lessons.  One of the attendees was a teacher at the Early Years Centre who, when I asked how they might use the techniques I was championing, suggested that I should be the resource.  What?  I was soon, and quite willingly, roped in to playing the part of a zoo-keeper to help kick off the nursery and receptions classes’ project about looking after animals.

Naturally I researched my role carefully, the night before, by typing “zoo keeper” into google images.   All the pictures showed khaki clad officials wearing sturdy boots, with various beasts draped over them (the zoo=keepers, not the boots.)  I looked carefully in my wardrobe and found no khaki at all.  Sadly none of the keepers wore purple checked shirts and ties.  The best I could find was a grey t-shirt, green fleece, dark green shorts, brown hat and flip-flops.  Thus sweating freely in tropical heat I arrived in the early years centre doing my best not to look like a Drama teacher in disguise and trying to work out a story to explain my footwear.   I arrived in the first classroom with my first box and introduced myself as a zoo-keeper form KL Zoo, promising to let the children keep the animal in the box if they could guess what it was from listening to some clues.  To add to the story I explained that I was a little late because of the naughty penguins at the zoo, quickly hoping that there were penguins at KL Zoo.  And then the reason my flip-flops, instead of zoo-keeper’s boots, came to me.  Flip flops would be exactly the thing to wear when cleaning out the penguins wouldn’t they?  That then gave me the opportunity to go into great detail about how cheeky the penguins were while also explaining just how smelly penguin poo was.  The rest of the story then fell into place and the children bought into the fiction.   Marvellous. I visited six classes and delivered six parcels and even managed to get children to sign for the deliveries, while mentioning my stickler for paperwork boss at the zoo.  The only moment of worry came when one teacher said to her class “We are going to the zoo this week, aren’t we children?  Will we see you there, Mr Zookeeper?”  Without thinking I asked what day they were going, Thursday apparently, which I quickly decided was my zoo-keeper’s day off.  Phew.  All went well.

Back at the football match and sitting next to me in the crowd one small crisp-munching boy turned to his Mum who was watching her daughter play football.  The small boy said, “We had a zoo keeper come in to our class today. He brought a baby elephant in.”  Mum’s response of “That’s nice, love” clearly showed that she was not listening.  The boy’s attention was soon back on his bag of crisps, conveniently failing to notice me sitting next to him wearing dark green shorts and flip flops.

Something that many commentators had thought for a long while was finally proved to be true this week: Lexi has the wrong sort of knees, as defined by Buddhism.  On a visit yesterday to the Big Buddha on the massive island of Phuket (careful pronunciation is always advised) she was stopped from entering the area as her knees were on show, something to be advised in the hot temperatures.  An official from the temple handed out a sort of sarong thing for her to cover her knees and then she was permitted to enter.  It was a magnificent view across the whole island from the top of the hill, where, for reasons of seeking enlightenment, local Buddhists have build a whopping great Buddha head, visible from pretty much everywhere around.  However it was the somewhat arbitrary nature of the knee covering for ladies that was my main concern.   A quick glance around at the visitors showed me that the policy of female knee coverage was not being strictly enforced.  Many women were permitted to enter with knees on show, especially those who were wearing skirts, both above and below the knee, or shorts that made contact with their knees.  Other women were being given wraps to cover their shoulders, but then some weren’t.  I wonder what Buddhists have against female knees?  Male knees and shoulders are clearly enlightened things and are permitted to be paraded in front of holy shrines and the like.   I am a little worried though: can women with the wrong sort of knees ever achieve enlightenment? 

As well as enjoying our five days exchanging the heat of Kuala Lumpur for the heat of Phuket by swimming in clear blue seas, touring places that we felt we should, eating really good fish soups and trying to avoid getting sun-burned we had some moments of controversy too.   Simultaneously celebrating the life and mourning the recent death of Michele Ferrero, aged 89, Rupert decided that he would like to have a generous portion of Snr Ferrero’s Nutella chocolate spread thereby having a fine start to the day while also adding to the US$23.4bn legacy of that famous man’s company.  All so far so good, especially as the very fine host of Fiji Palms Resort where we were staying, Steve, delivered the jar to the table before the pancakes arrived.  Time then moved in a two speed set up as it often does with small children whereby Lexi and I’s attention was distracted elsewhere for what felt like sometime while Rupert set to work.  The two time zones crashed back together with an enraged holler from Trixie “EURGH!  Rupert’s stuck his fingers into the nutella jar.”  Parents looked round and saw the lid back on the jar and a guilty expression on the main man’s face.  The shout had been so loud that all around had heard it.  We were left with only one honorable thing left to do: buy the remains of the jar seeing as Lawrence digits had been shoved in the jar, as well as, knowing Rupert, plenty of other places too.  Rupert now owes 212 Baht, as well as the remains of a debt built up for loosing two school wrist bands, one lunch box and one water bottle.  Curiously no-one appears to have wanted to eat much of the spread from the nutella jar that Rupert now owns.

Lexi and I also took the opportunity to have some new work clothes made while in Thailand, a land of plentiful tailors.  I got three more shirts and a pair of trousers made while Lexi took a favourite linen top and trousers of hers to be copied.  We also did our best to get a new pair of dance trousers for Edwin.  Someone might say that the tailor was thorough, others might say slow.  We put the order in on Monday and were hopeful of a swift service.  Tailors in Bangkok make great play of completing their orders in 24 hours or faster, but this was the countryside of Phuket.  We appeared to have to make a daily trip in to see that tailor who wanted to make evermore adjustments and tweaks as the days passed.  It also gave him yet another opportunity to advise us that our holiday would not be complete without a visit to his restaurant, which was conveniently next door.  The final garment, Edwin’s trousers were the trickiest.  Being dancing trousers they have to meet exacting standards and so we were asking for quite a tricky thing really, I suppose, but having been measured and drawn diagrams, shown him Edwin’s old ones etc for the tailor we were hopeful.  The finished results were smaller and shorter than his current pair as well as being helpfully drain piped despite us insisting that they had to be straight-legged.   It was back to the drawing board for the great tailor who took fresh measurements, new designs etc and had a go at doing them properly in the end.  The second results wee much better, although nowhere near the quality of a KL tailor that we have used in the past.  Ok the Phuket bloke was half the price, but the quality was less than half of the KL guy.  You get what you pay for.

Back to work on Monday.

I have found myself having to ask both these questions this week and they were not questions that I thought I would ever have to ask.  I have always treated meatballs with the same caution as hot dog sausages, highly coloured yoghurts and chocolate flavoured coatings, but it turns out that it is not the eating of them that can be the biggest problem for the average year three student.  I was peacefully, if a little speedily, finishing my lunch on Thursday when I spotted a tearful sight heading in my direction.  That sight was a year three girl, fortunately not Trixie, walking over to her friend while wearing her lunch all down her white, polo shirt uniform.  The lunch in question was meatballs, tomato sauce and spaghetti.   The closer she got to her friend the more lesser friends and staff moved away from this meatball on legs.  Looking around me it quickly became clear that it was down to yours truly to take control of the situation.  Looking shocked and upset she was in that pre-collapse hiatus that usually happens just before total meltdown for all seen year olds, usually when the problem they face is insurmountable.  Wearing meatballs, tomato sauce and spaghetti definitely fell in to that category.  Gathering up her friend for moral support I whisked her off to the place that usually cures all ills and spills, the primary office.  With alarming speed this rather unusual party of three was passed onto to the school nurse faster than the girl spilled the plate of food in the first place.  While the nurse did her comforting best, sorting out fresh clothes and the like (dealing with red stuff that wasn’t blood must have been pleasant change for her I thought) I returned to the cafeteria and spoke with the main man who agreed to refill her plate when she returned.  In a short time disaster had turned in to anecdote.  The year three in question should be easy to spot in days to come though, being the girl with the tomato sauce stain all down the front of her uniform.  Never mind she can claim it is a Chinese New Year special uniform.

Maybe she needed some flowers to cheer her up?  Maybe I needed some flowers to thank me for my quick thinking?  Maybe the others who melted away from her swifter than you could say meatballs needed flowers thrown at them?  Anyway I know someone who has a few to spare, thanks to an ordering mix-up.  It is is my Mum’s birthday this weekend and knowing that mothers like flowers I took to the internet on Thursday evening to arrange just the right thing to send her way.  I went through the careful selection and thorough selection process that all men who know nothing about flowers do: “Yes those are flowers and have colour;” before placing the order.  All was going well.  I entered my bankcard number, I even waited for and typed in the “one-time permission code” to approve payment.  Click.  “We are sorry, we cannot proceed with your order at this point,” read the next screen, while my phone buzzed to say that successful payment had been made.  Sorry, my arse, thought I.  It was getting late and Thursday had been a hassling day, with only one of the hassles being spaghetti related.  I tracked down a customer care number and phoned it whereby I spoke to a cheerful chap called Dominic.  Dominic did some checking and found that no order had been placed  He offered to monitor the situation for me and put the order through if nothing happened automatically, promising to email whatever.  Great I thought and went to bed, not really sure what might or might to happen next.

By first thing on Friday morning no emails from Dominic had arrived.  I therefore made a decision to change my flower provider of choice and so, when I got to work, after checking my emails one more time, I ordered flowers, this time paid for them successfully and got on with the business of the day.  Marvellous.

I received a very nice text message from my Mum late on Friday, KL time, to say that a bouquet of blooms and just arrived.  That was incredibly fast service I thought, seeing as I had only ordered them 11 hours earlier.  What company sent them, I enquired?  Mum carefully named the first retailer.  Drat and blast.  That meant very soon afterwards she would be receiving another pile of blooms from another company, wishing her a happy birthday for the second time.  

If anyone suddenly needs piles of flowers in the Norwich area then just say the word.  My Mum has a few to spare.