Minnie’s Musings

Random ramblings of a middle aged, middle class, middle income woman

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  • Reasonable and Adequate

    Many moons ago we went to tribunal to force the county council into funding a place for our son at a local special school.

    Said placement was expensive but not eye watering. County argued that our soon needed to go to the local MLD school, arguing that the provision matched his needs.

    Unfortunately for county defined His Nib’s needs and as two levels below what they were and compounded their error by calling him by the wrong name not once, not twice, but three times in their paperwork.

    That said I do recall the county rep arguing that their legal responsibility was to make provision that meets a child’s needs not provide everything the parents want or the ‘best’. This is not unreasonable as long as the county assessment of needs is accurate.

    So when watching last night’s Panorama and listening to a mother justify the package she wanted her daughter to receive which included one to one tuition and horse therapy, one did wonder whether this could possibly get past the ‘good husbandry’ test.

    I have long said that early intervention (at a cost) is essential to reducing the bill as the child grows into adulthood.Local authorities tend to be fighting g fire with funding so think in terms of crisis in the here and now rather than the long term.

    So I see where mum was coming from when she said, they should have invested in her child earlier.

    However there has to be a limit. If the provision isn’t designated as specialist by a credible authority then you are expecting the county to fund a place at a private school. All children benefit from the smaller class sizes and better resourcing in the private sector.

    I am not convinced that they who shout the loudest should always get their way. But then I shouted – literally- very loudly indeed and it cost county a fortune. But the provision we got was 200 miles away, down the M4 and we broke our hearts sending him to the only place we could find that would both take him at all and be able to meet his needs.

    Therefore I remain ambivalent because education is strapped across the board and there is cavernous gap for students who fall between the mainstream and special school to tumble into, taking their families with them.

  • Polite but Firm

    Since when – I ask you – were there weight restrictions on baggage for trains?

    Not on British Rail I can tell you that.

    Not on EuroStar, I can also tell you that.

    But on ViaRail Canada they are as strict as Ryan Air (straight after they have reduced the size of carry on baggage, again).

    We did not encounter this problem when we boarded our train from Cornwall to Montreal, primarily because the conductor was only loading a handful of passengers and all the trains were delayed.

    But boy did they get the scales out in Montreal. And I mean literally.

    It did not help that BB had disappeared in pursuit of coffee.

    It did not help that McD’s lost BB’s order for coffee.

    It did not help that our case was overstuffed because we had stowed it in left luggage for the day.

    I was told to get rid of the weight.

    But for goodness sake, the rampant repack was mere redistribution of weight as I testily remarked to the lurking ViaRail bod. He had zero sympathy and adopted the polite but firm manner of Canadians whose natural disposition is friendly, but in this case he had a job to do. So I just moved the excess into random carrier bags and tried not to swear too loudly.

    By the time BB appeared, I was cross and dishevelled and very worried we were about to miss our train. As a railway professional himself, BB was flabbergasted that there was any maximum weight for luggage and would have paused to expostulate on this had I not been fizzing with panic and irritation, clearly about to explode.

    I handed him his backpack – now stuffed with his shoes – and we made a dash for the platform.

    I have since decided that someone has introduced a rule with a maximum weight of 50kg. This may be because transport companies want to save themselves thousands in work place injuries.

    But I am still cross.

  • Montreal: The Penny Drops

    It did indeed. But not in Montreal. Back in Blighty. Yesterday, to be exact.

    On day two in Montreal, we decided to take a hike up Mount Royal. This involved packing up and traipsing up to the mainline station to find left luggage. Montreal has a whole subterranean city so citizens can move about freely during the harsh winters and hot summers. Well, they need a better map is all I can say.

    After testy march up and down tunnels and escalators we stowed our stuff and found the train to Mount Royal. Which I may say is nowhere near the mount named ‘Royal’ itself but rather slap bang in the middle of a decidedly bohemian neighbourhood. I would have felt hip and happening were I 35 years younger. But I’m not. So I didn’t.

    Anyway, we eventually got to the park –can I say that digging up roads and cutting off pedestrian crossings is also a Montreal pass time – and hiked up the hill. Does it qualify as a ‘mount’? Probably, but possibly not in Mr Munroe’s book. On a warm day it was quite hard work.

    Anyway, what a view! I love a view. Right across the city, with the St Lawrence snaking sluggishly in the distance. We admired said view from all angles and had a beverage and sandwich in the pavilion at the top.

    Lots of people were up there with us. The cynic in me (for which read deeply sanctimonious if knackered scaler of numerous hillocks including Snowden and Kinder Scout) thinks they might have taken the bus. But I am uncharitable.

    But I would also add that I think it is lovely seeing families of all descriptions out and about enjoying the sights and sounds of a new city, meeting friends and generally having a good time.

    Ahhh yes, back to the dropped penny; Mount Royal translates to Mont Real. Isn’t that clever?!

  • Montreal: The Mighty St Lawrence

    Montreal is a delightful, modern city with lots of skyscrapers downtown and a decidedly cosmopolitan vibe. We stayed in an aparthotel with a washing machine (hurrah). We got there late and every shop and restaurant we tried was shutting up shop for the night. Pizza it was and jolly nice it was too.

    Then we discovered there was a nightclub next door. Now I am all for people having fun so tolerated one night of thump, thump, thump… but on a Sunday. FFS?!

    Our day for exploring Montreal was a Sunday, so we strolled through the old town admiring the architecture and reading the various explanatory plaques. I had realised by this point that my carefully purchased guidebook was not in my bag but still on my bedroom windowsill. I hate being without a guidebook.

    What an interesting place Montreal all is. Particularly because of its position on the St Lawrence where it played a significant role in opening up the Canadian interior to European settlers through trade.

    If you had asked me as a teenager, or even as a history student, whether I would find the ins and outs of dredging marjor arterial rivers and building mechanisms to divert ice flows fascinating, I would have scoffed (more interested in the murderous tendencies of your average Roman senator or Tudor monarch than anything socio-economic).

    But it was soooo interesting. Particularly as the river flowed past in stately grace with mighty power (more on the power of this river to follow). It was particularly interesting to Best Beloved as his grandfather had sailed up the St Lawrence when he emigrated to Canada prior to the Great War.

    As with many metropolitan cities there were Sunday demonstrations including a Quebec separatist gathering and Pro-Palestinian march past. This kind of sums up the city. At once parochial and at the same time international as Canada has absorbed numerous diaspora for several hundred years.

  • Universal Grumblings

    After being deposited at Cornwall station – which was so empty it had all the atmosphere of a remote outpost in the American West. If it hadn’t been for the nearby houses one would have expected tumble weed to roll across the tracks. I am talking about atmosphere here, not environment.

    Our train tickets were very specific. We had to get on our booked train and our booked train only. Which was a bit of a problem as there was an incident back up the line which was delaying all trains.

    As various locals pitched up to pick up their no doubt tired, hungry and deeply annoyed relatives the muttered conversations decrying the state of Canadian railways whispered through the waiting room.

    We all do this. Complain about the railways. Though I am less prone than others as my husband is the bloke in the hi-vi who is walking down the track to sort out whatever the problem is. Do wave to him. It may not cheer him up but he will come home and say, “Don’t know what was going on today, but all these passengers were waving at me…” and I will smile.

    My primary complaint about Canadian railways as the system is sparse. You can travel down the St Lawrence corridor or across to British Columbia. There are one or two lines that stretch to the far reaches of Nova Scotia and up through Northern Ontario. But that is it. And you cannot find a national or regional bus service to save your life. I know. I tried.

    Anyway, when a very, very large train eventually chugged into view we talked the conductor into letting us on the train with our tickets for the next one, some two hours hence.

    He was most polite but somewhat hesitant. And when we boarded it involved a quick discussion with the chief steward who nodded seriously as though authorising a boarder crossing for someone without their passport but who was clearly a national.

    Peculiar, me thought. Because there were enough empty seats in the carriage to sit a small army.

    I will return to the topic of the polite but firm addiction to the rules of Canadian railway personnel in a later post. And I may have a grumble.

  • One Has Moved

    From the bed to the sofa.

    From The Archers to A Place in the Sun.

    Then one remembered that one has run out of milk and one needs something for supper. So one has now moved to high street, bought essentials and collapsed in local cafe after exertions.

    One is exhausted after a wonderful day taking the train to Cardiff to meet uni chum and then stop off in Bristol for catch up with a niece.

    Uni chum and I compared haircuts (both chopped short, mine a tad drastically) and shopped in Clarks for sensible shoes. Between bemoaning the greys and planter fasciitis we took up residence in an independent cafe and gutted the lives of our children (now all growed up) before getting frightfully excited during an exchange of resources in the way that teachers do.
    I have just moved into adult learning and she has been at it for 12 years. She showed me her favourite quiz app and I showed her my diagnostic excel spreadsheet. Deeply satisfying. We are going to meet term we have decided.
    Well that’s the hope. For despite being all growed up offspring still seem to require an inordinate amount of tender care.
    The trains seemed ultra busy with people pouring in and out of cities for a day or evening of fun. Lads in jeans and polos, girls in the skimpiest of skirts. I still hear mother’s voice warning “You’ll get a cold in your kidneys in that.”

    Stopped at Fulton Abbey Wood which appears to be slap bang in the middle of an MOD site. Lots of high fencing and razor wire. Panic was assuaged by niece appearing in the distance, arms outstretched for a big hug. Dinner, dissection and discussion of house sales and wedding plans ended a delightful day.

    And then I earned a brownie point for supporting a neonatal nurse who had just pulled her back lifting a baby. She could barely stand once I helped her off her waiting room seat (the cold metal of which will not have helped).

    A crowded platform including a variety of large inebriated lads who were good humoured but raucous meant our acquaintance was extended to finding seats together on the train and me digging around in the bottom of my bag for my stash of painkillers.

    The sisterhood is a good thing. It recognises when a situation isn’t necessarily dangerous but is intimidating, however unintentional. Some of the sisterhood aren’t big or strong. Sometimes we need a marginally bigger, not much stronger but much more belligerent sister to see a way through.
    Bout of virtue signalling must come to an end as I have to get ready for the coming week. Was enjoying day on the sofa. Hey ho!

  • Just a Sentence

    As previously discussed ad nauseam, reaction to the news can be a mixed bag.

    After all the reports on the synagogue attack and the new plan for peace in Gaza, the thing that made me gasp out loud was the death in a car crash of that young man who has just been released from prison in Qatar, for the heinous crime of sleeping with a young woman.

    This item was just a sentence. It’s not even on the BBC News website, so I can’t check his name or where he was prosecuted (please excuse errors).

    He has been killed in a car crash in South London. He was a passenger. Perhaps the driver was also killed. Another family blighted by grief.

    And lurking behind this is the tiniest, faintest hope that the protagonists in Gaza have been shoved into a peace deal. Every light at the end of a tunnel starts as a glimmer.

  • It’s A Bit Grim Out There

    I say with the deep understatement we Brita are known for.

    Sooner or later someone would attack a synagogue (again). People are killed and wounded. Condolences and prayers are offered. There are calls for unity.

    And then it starts. The demand to tone down anti-Israeli rhetoric, the debates on whether a Palestine Action march should take place this weekend due to stretched police resources; barely concealed anti semitism and it’s other face, the extremes of Zionism.

    Three men lost their lives. One because he made a choice to wear a belted bomb -however unviable- a seond a victim of the terrorist. And the third a man apparently caught in the cross fire.

    To this I would add the armed officer who now has to live with the consequences of firing a weapon whose bullet destroyed an innocent life.

    Therefore I think it a good time to pause and reflect. Put down a placard, put down a pen, stow a keyboard. Just stop, pause and reflect on whether this is how we want to live in our supposedly green and pleasant land .

    Stopping and thinking, pausing for reflection before returning to fight the good (or bad) fight is what is needed. And for the families of the victims let’s spend more than a soundbite considering their loss..

  • Etiquette Dans La Gym

    As I write this I am peddling away on one of those armchair type bike things in our local gym. Yes, I am taking exercise and it doesn’t involve traipsing through the drizzle in the hope of a hot cup of tea at some strategically located establishment half way through walk.

    And I have just had one of those deeply satisfying exchanges with a fellow woman of a certain age who overheard me cursing the half dozen or so supposedly empty lockers. Well, cursing the owners of various jackets etc which had been stowed by those without the requisite pound coin to lock stuff away.

    She offered me access to the locker she had just vacated as I stumbled over using the correct word for this misuse of gym facilities. “It’s just inconsiderate,” she said. “That’s the word I was looking for,” I replied.

    Her next remark made be smile.
    “They’re taking a risk, given that a woman might want to use one.”

    For indeed I had just had that very thought. Or urge. Or malevolent idea.

    So should a dame on a white charger not gallop to my rescue in the future I will empty a locker of its unsecured contents and use it.

    The locker. Not the contents.

    And, because I am considerate, I will not chuck said contents onto the floor. I will simply fold it up and place on the nearby sofa.




  • A Difference of Manners

    Apart from a joint history shared with those of European descent and a shared common-ish language there are many cultural differences between ourselves and our cousins across The Pond. And while some differences are gaping chasms (gun control, abortion rights, religion in politics) others are way more subtle.

    Americans – legendarily – do not doff their caps according to social status,but they are formal in the way they address each other’s parents . We still doff our caps to our social ‘superiors’ so reflexively that to not do so requires us to make a pointed stand in not doing so. However the only people we would routinely call ‘sir’ or ma’am’ are the King or lately the Queen.

    Americans are far more likely to say what they are thinking (which we regard as decidedly blunt if not rude much of the time). While we – as I explained to more than one incoming teacher from the US – can say a thousand words in one pregnant pause, not one of which is a compliment.

    Our sense of humour is different. Americans like sarcasm and goofball comedy. We base ours on irony and value wit above all else. We like slapstick as well (a la Benny Hill). Each to his own.

    The antics of the US crowd at the Ryder Cup may be considered to have stepped over the line. Though I do not think we can say our sports fans are paragons of virtue. However, as I was about to point this out to Best Beloved, I was treated to a long discourse on the self-regulation of the modern day football fan. Apparently, I am told, it is rare for anyone to cross the line these days and if they do they are gently slapped down. Hmmmm.

    The New York crowd has just been described as brutal and boisterous and having a disregard for golfing etiquette.

    There are two ways to deal with this onslaught. Well, three.

    Rise above with swan like grace.

    Respond with deadpan humour or icy politeness a la Justin Rose to Bryson Duchamp’s caddie yesterday.

    Or thrash them into the ground, pulverise them into a pulp and/or squish them like gnats on a Summer’s evening.

    If we do throw away our current commanding lead we shall congratulate them with the stiffest of upper lips and hoist ourselves onto the petard of our moral high ground, having donated our fees etc to charity without being shamed into doing so. Ha!