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The kids started at their new school today. We haven't moved. With some inevitability the work that we're having done to the new place, which was meant to be finished by mid-August is now scheduled to end in October, though we're hoping we can move at the end of September.
But luckily the new school is still within 20 minutes drive from our current house, so they can get to meet their new teachers and class mates.
There is a new uniform that has a tie. I remember absolutely loathing school uniform as a kid, especially the tie - we all wanted to go on strike to make them let us wear our own clothes. Or was that Grange Hill? Why are you dressing kids up as little business people you monsters.
Actually I didn't care about clothes much and was the kind of kid who stayed in my school uniform when I got home, because I didn't have any cool clothes or indeed see the point of changing. Clothes are clothes. But I had hated wearing a tie. I took that off as soon as I could. Yes, I was a rebel.
But boy, these kids looked cute today. Phoebe seemed quite cool and blase about the move (though I know she was putting on a show) but it was tougher for Ernie, who like his dad is an insane mixture of boisterous and shy, outgoing and anxious. He asked us to tell the teacher that he was feeling nervous. Though unsurprisingly the teacher was ready for that! Luckily seven other kids were starting a new school in his class today and one of the other girls had been at his old school til about a year ago and they'd been really good friends. And they picked that up immediately. So I felt less scared for him.
I moved schools when I was 8 (as I think I've mentioned recently) and a few months ago mum recounted watching me in the first week I was thre, walking across the playground alone, playing some solo game - I don't remember it, but the memory still impacts on her half a century later. I get that. Sending those little cosplay accountants into a new place to fend on their own is quite a tug on the heart.
After school I took the kids for a pizza and then went to a park with Ernie whilst Phoebe went to drama club. Even though I've spent six weeks with these chumps, I really enjoyed another couple of hours of time with them. As usual they didn't divulge much about what had gone at school, but they both seemed to have enjoyed it.
"What was school like Phoebe?"
"School."
Was a typical exchange. Her life is affectation. You wouldn't know it from talking to her, because she makes out she hates school, but when we went into see her end of year work in July it was incredible how much she'd achieved and how great she is at pretty much everything.
It's so fucking trite and obvious to say it, but these are the golden times and yet we miss so much of it due to work. Trite and obvious and the realisation of every 1990s Jim Carrey film, and yet still nothing changes. Plenty of my friendsMy best friend from University, Mike Cosgrave was in our comedy troupe, the Seven Raymonds. I think it's fair to say that he was never going to even try to make a career out of comedy, though he's quietly one of the funniest people I know. He married his first girlfriend, moved to the West Country and had kids. He plays in various folk and world music bands and his wife was the main breadwinner, so Mike largely stayed home and brought up the kids. Today, as I sat in the park I realised he'd probably won life there. His children are adults now so he can enjoy these later years playing music and being a lovely man.
I think you just measure success differently as you get a bit older. But this morning (Thursday) after I'd got the kids ready for school we all lay on a bean bag together playing on our phones all scrunched up together and I can't remember anything in life that's made me feel as content as that. Who'd want any more than this? And I know it's only a fleeting time, within two to five years they won't want to do this any more.
Anyway I'm giving up comedy to become a full time dad.
What do you mean you thought I had already?
What do you mean, good?
