Back to school, and to the other kind of work today.
Mark trudged off to fill the world with wi-fi signals, and I took Oliver to the dentist. He had broken his front tooth in half again, in a ruler-chewing mishap at school, and some Tooth Glue was called for.
Whilst we were out Lucy did some cooking.
This was not from a charitable wish to be useful in the family home, but because she had reluctantly agreed to bake some Rocky Road biscuits for a charitable cake sale at school.
I donated ten pounds worth of chocolate, marshmallows, sultanas and digestive biscuits, which she melted into a revolting buttery mess and scraped into a tin. It looked like flattened cat sick.
When it had chilled she cut it into twenty bits which she explained they would sell to the juniors for fifty pence each. I thought that I could have just given her the tenner and saved the juniors from tooth decay, and myself from a pile of washing up, but she said that was not the point.
I cleaned Oliver’s shoes and obliged him to enter the shower. I do not supervise this activity any more, because of his advanced age, but I wish I could, because he is no more fastidious than he was when he was eight, and he is getting to the age when spots are becoming an ever-present threat. He has got tall again, His new trousers still fitted him, but only just.
Whilst they were occupied I went into the office. Oliver is going skiing at Easter, and on the advice of Number Two Daughter, who ought to know, I have booked both children some skiing lessons at half term.
I have never been skiing, and hence my knowledge of the subject is entirely limited to watching YouTube films of Number Two Daughter crashing into buried trees. It is nice when one’s children achieve all of these things on their parents’ behalf. I can bask in a reflected glow of achievement without ever having had to rub any bruises.
Whilst I was waiting for the ski slope to answer the telephone I checked idly through my emails, and to my surprise there was one from the Prison Service.
I had not expected to hear from them again.
They said that since I was very, very close to being the sort of person that they wanted, perhaps we could meet again.
They suggested that I came down to Manchester, on Friday, and spent a day with them, learning to be more assertive, and then took the Assertiveness Test again.
I didn’t know what to think. Actually, I still don’t know what to think, despite having had the whole of a journey to York and back to get my thoughts into order.
I think that I am already quite assertive enough, and if I go down again shall welcome the opportunity to demonstrate it. I could discuss their Equal Opportunities Policy with them, especially insofar as it relates to changing facilities.
Having abandoned the idea of the Prison Service as a career I feel reluctant to pick it up again, although I do like the idea of an assertiveness course very much indeed. I think it has the potential to be entirely fascinating.
I rang Mark to tell him about it on his way back from work, and he thought that I should give it a go, because I can always decide that I don’t want to go any further, whereas if I say no now then the door closes.
I am thinking about it.
There is still the bleep test.
Not to mention the polyester trousers.
Hmm.
