Everything I've done the past few days seems to be somehow associated with the school yard. Yesterday I drove to my home town, and into the yard of my old primary school. My old primary school is a Catholic one, and my old parish church is there. The reason I went to my old school, and in particular my old parish church, is not great: the older sister of a school friend died very suddenly, and a memorial service was held there. I wanted to give my friend some support, so I travelled there, with an old black and white photograph in my handbag to show the family. Her sis was twelve years our senior, and the photograph shows her aged 12 or 13, holding me as a bub less than a year old, and my older sister is astride a pony next to us. My friend's eyes welled with tears again when she saw the photo, and when I showed her parents, they couldn't speak for a moment. It was a hard, throat-acher of a day.
I sat in that church, and looked around. How much older everyone has become. How much fatter some people have become. During the eulogy, I became more aware of an increasingly acute need for the ladies' toilet, and I knew I would be in pure agony, or wet underpants if I did not relieve this need. So I quietly slipped through the back door and made me way in the direction of the girls' toilet, relying on memory as I have not been a student there for a long time. So much landscaping has been carried out in the intervening years. The actual convent apparently no longer houses nuns. I don't know what it is used for now. Perhaps it still houses the same nuns, and has been restructured into an asylum for the criminally insane, which is what I often believe some of those old nuns I had were. Well, I found the loo, which was just near the relocated bell tower; they moved the bell tower, but didn't paint it. You know what? I'm kind of glad. I love that peeling paint on the old wooden tower; it has so much character. I approached the toilet with the same trepidation I had as a youngster, because when I was a kid the dunnies were practically jumping with horrible, slimy green frogs. The cubicle I found had a dunny that appeared to be frog-free, so I used it as quickly as I could, put down the lid before I flushed (lest a horrible amphibian bastard make its unwanted appearance), attended to the ablutions ('Hey, a hot air hand dryer! That wasn't there when I was eight!'), and resumed my place in the church.
Today I attended my local library as a guest ambassador type thing for Book Week, and spoke to two lots of school children. The first lot were infants, and the second aged between 8-10. I was asked to speak about why reading can be such a joy. I said to the little cherubs on the mat that I have a tendency to use big, overblown words and if they wanted me to explain anything, to just put up their hands. A hand was in the air, and I was overjoyed to think I had an enquiring mind. 'Can I have a drink of water?' asked the kid, and hot on the heels came several requests from other attendees to use the toilet. Not quite the Q&A session I was envisaging. I have it on good authority from the librarian the children loved me. That's a nice feeling. The second session went really well, and the kids asked fantastic questions about writing and books, not whether they could have a drink of water and use the toilet. One kid asked me was I proud of what I write. I gave her the short answer: 'Yes'. Well, I didn't want to lay the false modesty on; it is my firm belief that kids have a pretty sharp bullshit-o-meter, and I didn't want those needles to twitch. Now, I'm not going to say the name of the school, but I had a good look at the teachers who attended because I am aware some of my trivia rivals at my regular Wednesday night game teach at the school. I am also aware some of them cannot grasp the concept that North America is not a country, it is a continent. Myself, and another of my team mates, took them to task one night when we answered, 'USA', because we were asked to what COUNTRY a particular animal is native. We were correct. We were also marking 'their' paper, and because they wrote 'North America', we marked them wrong. Well, they WERE wrong. They protested and were given a point. They were also given a spray from me ('Hope you don't teach bloody Geography!'). One of the more sedate of my team tried to get me to stop, but WTF, they were WRONG!!!! And their protest was frivolous bordering on vexatious. Not as vexatious as I can be because I'm going to ask them do they cheat on their fucking prostate tests next time they pull a stunt like this. But today it was a different crop of teachers, and I behaved myself. I smiled sweetly at the kid who was delegated with the important mission of standing up and thanking me on behalf of the school. I thanked the children for listening to me. I did not say, 'Be good, but when the teachers start to teach you some Geography, disregard them.'
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