School's A Lot Different These Days - Thank Goodness! in Scottish Meanderings

Is there anything more joyous than watching a child learn to read?

I still find it amazing when Lily nonchalantly picks out which book she wants to read at bedtime - I don’t mean the one I’m away to read to both of them - I mean the ones she keeps secreted away beside her pillow ready for perusing when the mood takes her. And my heart just leapt seeing her excitement when she opened part of her birthday present for her 8th birthday - she’d asked for one of the TreeHouse Storey books


and I’d bought her the set. Her face at realising she had all of them to choose from was an absolute picture!

Lilah is just learning to pick out words now and it’s fantastic to see her choosing books she’s able to read and showing me how well she’s doing - and she shows me all her ‘problem’ and ‘favourite’ words. I think, for me, it just makes me hug myself with glee at the thought of the world I know it’s going to open up for them - the friends they’re going to make from favourite books, all the authors and stories they’re going to come to love. It makes me think of snatched hours in the afternoon sun years and years ago on top of our sloping tarred roof shed in the back garden, lying on a blanket, invisible from the house, with the latest Secret Seven or Jennings and Derbyshire adventure in my hands. Bliss!

And the girls have the perfect place to hide themselves away for a good reading session. Nikki bought them these cool bed tents which they just love -


I mentioned once before in here that a little girl once mistook me for the children’s author, Jacqueline Wilson. At the time I was very much thinner and did look a little bit like her but the awe in that wee girl’s face as she tugged at her Mum’s jacket and urgently whispered to her (a stage whisper so I heard it) was fabulous and probably the only chance I’ll get to be revered in any way! Lily was too young to know this at the time so I was well chuffed the other night when she said she thought I looked like her because she’s one of her favourite authors. What greater accolade could I have than that?? :)


The Skinner Sibling video chat celebrated our 6 month anniversary in the middle of this month and to mark the occasion Nikki hosted a quiz on the fifth anniversary of Mam’s death a week later. That was quite fitting because we all started chatting the day after what would have been her birthday in May which I know she would have been absolutely delighted about. Nikki makes a good Quizmaster - she’s done 3 for us so far - and did a special round on Mam’s flat - what was the stuffed animal in a wicker basket she had on the fireplace beside her armchair? What was special about the Bible she had on the wall shelf in the sitting room? What was on the decals in the bathroom? Stuff like that. It was good fun!

The annoying thing was Marina, my niece, who lived in the same town as Mam, had just messaged us several days previously saying she had 100 photos of Mam’s flat which she’d collated and put into a Facebook album and given access to the family to see. But I hadn’t looked at them because I was waiting for the right moment thinking I might get upset so was psyching myself up to do it! However despite that, I still won the Quiz :) Although only just - Mike and I tied with each other so we had a tiebreaker of how many times does the word ‘blood’ appear in the play MacBeth? I think it was 42 or something and I said 26. Mike said 256 or some such but he was a sore loser - he spent a good 15 minutes googling it and questioning the answer afterwards even though it brought him no nearer to winning!

At one point in the general knowledge round, Nikki asked what was the softest mineral in the periodic table? Mike had beside him 2 Homepride Fred salt and pepper pots which he’d taken from Mam’s flat and when he was thinking of the answer, he glanced at the shaker holes in the top and instantly remembered it was talc! So we think Mam was probably joining in :)

To be honest I’ve been quite amazed that we’ve shown up every Tuesday for a whole six months and generally yap for almost 3 hours - I didn’t think we’d last long before life would start to get in the way although I suppose it helps that only Mike is working now - the rest of us are retired. But the dynamic of the group is interesting - we’ve all reverted back to our ‘place’ in the family so to speak. And as the youngest I find I often hardly have a voice and have to struggle to make myself heard sometimes. Mike and Lorna are very much the dominant personalities and tend to ‘take over’ a lot of the time. Ian, Margaret and I are much quieter and just get the occasional word in edgeways when we can!

I wondered if anyone else has found this happening in family video chats?

I have a possible plan to counteract the frustration though. Several times during the chat, Lorna was busy knitting. This was mainly because 2 of her multitude of grandchildren had birthdays on the same day in November and she was doing jumper and hat sets for them both so was short of time. I remembered that I had holes in both my jacket pockets (which meant I was always losing my keys, phone and specs in the lining) so one Tuesday evening I grabbed the needle and thread and got cracking. It worked really well! So I'm thinking once Christmas is past I might look out a fairly easy pattern and try knitting while I'm chatting. I've always wanted to get back to it but I found I couldn't do it just on its own - I have to be doing something else like watching telly or something as well so Tuesday nights would be ideal.

This week we were remembering some of the sadistic primary school teachers we had as kids and talking about getting the belt. Lorna apparently got it no less than thirteen times - and there was me ashamed of my measly twice! It’s crazy to think of a grown man or woman hitting a child of younger than Lily’s age with a leather tawse nowadays - it actually makes me sick to think of it. (And not all of them used it on the hands either.) And it’s nuts to think what we got it for - Lorna said when she was 6 years old, her class was learning numbers and there was often some confusion with a ‘2’ and a ‘3’ because they started off the same shape. If they got the wrong one, they got the belt for that. Can you imagine? And can you imagine how that impacted on making a perfectly natural mistake and the fear it instilled?

When Mike got the belt, they fetched Lorna, who was 4 years younger, out of her class to come and watch. Presumably to add to the shame. What they didn’t know is Mike wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass who saw him getting it - and Lorna would have no doubt been highly delighted at the spectacle given that he spent the majority of his life at home at the time tormenting her!

As for me, I was 7 when I got it. And the reason? The teacher, Miss Sutherland, had left me IN CHARGE (at 7!) of the whole class while she went off somewhere else. We’re talking a class of thirty plus 7 year olds. I did my best but it was hopeless - when she came back the place was in chaos - and I was belted for that. Mum said she used to hear Miss Sutherland bawling at the kids from Midmills Road - which means she could hear her across a main street, a large playground, a main building and another building where her class was!

We called such teachers ‘targers’ - there’s a good Scots word for you. What would you have called them where you’re from?

But we also remembered the good teachers - the ones who commanded quiet respect just by their presence - who only had to raise an eyebrow for you to behave, who didn’t have to shout, the ones you wanted to work for, didn't live in fear of and who made you curious to learn more. Sadly they appeared to be in the minority at that time.

Lorna had the good fortune to be able to meet the son of one of those teachers somewhere once and told him how much she loved being taught by his mother, who was in her nineties and in a nursing home at the time. He was able to pass on the message to his mum and said she was absolutely delighted with it. I also was able to do this with one of my secondary school teachers who taught Maths and Arithmetic, Mr. Wilson. He was one of those wonderful teachers who knew in an instant if someone was struggling with something and never made an exhibition of them or made them feel stupid. He would set a problem then come round everybody individually and spend as much time as necessary quietly explaining things until they understood. He never once had to raise his voice in the classroom.

When I was at the most recent school reunion, I was delighted to find him there. Also in his nineties and becoming frail, I realised he may not ever be at another one so plucked up the courage to go up to him and tell him how much I had enjoyed learning Maths and Arithmetic with him (and also badminton because he took the Badminton Club and taught me the game). He was highly delighted at this and, to my surprise, reeled off the names of all four of us as though he had just taught us all yesterday - we’re talking a good 45 years in between since I left school, 52 years for Lorna and 55 and 56 years for the boys! I was well impressed.


I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something in this Feng Shui business. I changed the bedroom round yesterday - I wanted to try it back as it was when I first moved in with my desk at the window but that meant the bed had to go ‘across’ the room and lying here this morning, it just feels ‘wrong’. It’s a bit weird. And of course everything is in the wrong place now - it's not until you do something like that that you realise there are a whole host of little niggles that just don't work with the new arrangement :) I was going to give it a month but I have a feeling it’ll all be changed back tomorrow! I haven’t had my scary Marilyn duvet set on the bed for a while though - that cheered me right up :)



A dear friend on here (Four) put up a map of the population density of Australia (where she lives) in her diary with a circle marking where she stays so I thought I’d do the same. I don’t need the circle though because there’s a very handy brown splodge in the middle of the east coast already marking the spot!


So if you look at the right-hand side of all that green in Scotland (above the topmost thick black line) till you see what appears to be an orange muddy puddle just after the second promontory on the right-hand side, that's me. Well it's not me - it's Aberdeen - but that's where I'm at. I must say the Highlands look pretty deserted on there but I suppose, in reality, they are :)

I love the cultural diversity of all my faves in here and have learned a lot from them - it would be great to see everyone’s locations in the world too if you’re up for it?