Achilles & Aristotle

Boy Wonder

A Champagne cork popped – or at least some cheap Prosecco – for our beguiling boy this evening. And we gave him that cork to mark and celebrate his fantastic progress post Parents Evening.

Until recently a past master at diversionary tactics and avoidance, the Boy Wonder has found his feet, developed some self-confidence and nosed out ahead of his age average, with confident predictions of more to come.

Much hard work from the whole family has got him through a sticky patch and maybe now he’s away. His reading has raced ahead, his maths is fine and he aced his reasoning tests – scoring off the chart.

But what matters here isn’t school, me or his mum. What matters here is him. He may always muddle ‘was’ and ‘saw’ and get his numbers back to front, but the best news of today is his application.

When the rest of the class had finished, by all accounts the boy was still working steadily away; on his own, in the corner. Head down, having a good go.

Me and his mum couldn’t help a ‘high five’ in front of the Head and his teacher. They smiled. We were all delighted for the world’s loveliest boy.

Art, Children, Life

Art Mimics Life

My lovely girl has got ‘in line’ skates for her Birthday. And very pleased with them she is too. At the same time – in the interests of developing my own interests – I decided to dust off and twang my old ukulele and pick a picture to contemplate from my unopened Christmas art book.

And here it is: ‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’, a bronze Futurist sculpture from 1931 by Umberto Boccioni.

Described as ‘an expression of movement and fluidity’, it has a bit more oomph than my wobbling ‘little Miss’. But the coincidence of art mimicking life tickled me.

Boccioni’s sculpture is depicted on the the Italian 20 cent euro coin. And after a tentative start she’s on the money too, trying hard – and getting there with her snazzy new skates.

Children, Life, Work

The Longer View

Camping up a hill in Devon you can’t help but take the longer view. Hills that have been there forever. The toil – even in the modern mechanised era – in taming and working the land.

Life is defined by sunrise and sunset and the fullest of moons. It made me think. I spend too much time staring at small text-laden screens and far too little looking at the bigger picture.

There is good evidence that short-sightedness is exacerbated by the eye not getting frequent enough opportunity to resolve to the infinite horizon. My eyes hurt when we first arrived. I couldn’t comfortably view the tree line – it felt like a strain.

Put the iPhone away (nowhere to charge it) and in a day or two my eyes were comfortably drawn to the hills and distant pastures – retuned to their natural state.

There are perhaps four more summers before my little family starts to fragment. Maybe only four more times we’ll pitch and strike our tent, in that farm field with friends and their kids.

For all the packing and unpacking, fetching and carrying, cooking and scrubbing, it is hard to imagine that it won’t go on forever. The trees, the meadow of buttercups, the hills and streams. All green, verdant and full of life…

And in one day back in the big city forgotten and distant. After a week at work, a world away.

The longer view, the far horizon and the here and now. I work too hard, for enough money but too little thanks. I should change my focus or soon I will need a different plan.

Art, Children, Life, Science, Work

Bear Necessities

This picture – drawn by my daughter – melted my heart and sums up my week. It captures the beguiling mix of sleepiness, size and sheer cuddliness of the Giant Panda. Like the °0° koala, there is nothing in nature cuter than the right type of bear.

I, for my part, have been much more the sore-headed variety of bear. Plenty of reasons to be grizzly at work and robbed of the hope of weekend hibernation – by the prospect of Spring camping in the cold and rain. But a sneek peek at this picture has cheered me up on at least half a dozen occasions.

The sleepy panda adorned her school campaign poster to save the benighted black and white bear. But the latest thinking says forget ‘enigmatic species’ and save ecosystems if you want conservation – bamboo forests are the thing to focus on, not the coy, inscrutable and often unsuccessful pairings of pandas in zoos.

So perhaps the tree in the picture is as important as the adorable bear hanging off it. Whatever the truth, this picture has made me – and by sharing it – a good few other people smile this week. Perhaps now a few more.

Children, Life

Sociabilidad

Time was… I was a miserable old soul. Grumpy, cynical and unsociable. A heart of gold; but a ‘crusty’ carapace. But the onset of children, middle years – and life in generally good shape – means I surprise myself sometimes.

Of course no leopard entirely changes its spots. I have finite (and quite small) reserves of geniality – just ask the missus and our friends. But in short bursts, and in the right circumstances, I can now be a jolly old soul.

And this morning was a good example. Having bought a nice purple potted plant with my son (who loves a natter and hugging complete strangers). We bumped into someone I’ve only ever spoken to once, a woman from work, painting her new house wall.

Time was I’d have smiled wanly and hurried on by. But today I popped the boy in the car – and jogged back for two minutes of spontaneous sociability with her and her other half. A flower, the son and sociability – the recipe for a blooming good morning.