I will skate with the blades a fraction under the surface.

Something that I have not mentioned before, possibly.

I never drive. I CAN but I really hate it and never feel casual and in control. My parking is like a joke about women parking and I feel insane if anyone drives very closely behind me. When we were first here I had an ancient car with very stiff gear changes which I felt safe in as you had plenty of time to change your mind if you had hysterically changed into first while going at top speed. I drove my son to and from school every day for a year, which was 15 miles away along country roads with steep hills and every form of extreme weather and suicidal animals. As I was crap at turning round etc. I had to set off extra early to get into the one space in the school car park where you could drive straight in and out. If it was taken I had to wait, hoveringly, half way up the drive until it was free again or most of the other parents had gone. At one point in the winter the journey became so scary, with thick fog, or icy roads, or snow, or deer standing just round blind bends and in darkness too, that I started taking beta-blockers half an hour before each journey and having to lie down for a bit with a strong drink when I got home. I also screamed a lot while driving especially along the windy, hilly river road where all oncoming lights totally blinded you even when they were dipped.

Once my son left that school I have pretty much never driven again. I go to the supermarket roughly every ten days with a friend in her car and otherwise I am here. In a prison of my own making. For the fifteen years that we lived in Norfolk I could not drive, although there was a village shop a mile away which I would drag along to occasionally on foot. I suppose that is where I perfected living inside my own head.

Another thing.

We are not poor. But then again I am older and have been poor in the past. Also, although we have a large house in the country surrounded by 200 acres of its own land and a big two floor flat in chic Notting Hill, they are in no way luxurious or even comfortable. All they have is a certain amount of space. In both cases we bought them when the areas were not fashionable, ( the flat just after we were married), in fact 'the only place to live' at that point was Chelsea and someone said, 'You're moving North of the Park! Is that wise? There's no one there'. Sadly there are now only too many people here and a large number of them are assholes.

Third thing.

Following on from the not being poor. My children all went to private schools right through including three years from 13 to 16 at a famous (though probably not to foreigners) boarding school. There - I've said it. The thing is that most English state schools are just terrible. Thousands of people who can't afford it kill themselves to send their children to private school so that they can have a decent education, as otherwise they almost certainly won't. My oldest daughter went to a state primary school for one year. It was in our village in Norfolk and they were desperate to keep up the numbers or it would be closed down. She learnt, I would say, nothing. A friend offered to give the children French conversation classes, free, and the headmaster said, 'French! Why would children like this ever need to speak French?'.



- posted by Iris @ 1/18/2004 06:48:00 PM comment