Ready for Reading - Covid Time

Schools closed yesterday.

Now we prepare for 'remote learning' to begin. Eddie and Gertie have stocked up their shelves with books to read, while Gilby prepares to do plenty of garden football challenges.

I sometimes wonder why two out of the three are readers. In a way they all are, but Gilby prefers sporting autobiography while the others are happy with a novel. And he has to be coerced into reading while the others snatch every available opportunity.

Though Gilby was game enough to go to school as a female book character for the second year running on World Book Day. This time as 'Gangster Granny' (last year he was The Boy in the Dress). My pearls and high heels did not survive the day.

In an online 'decluttering' (now that there is covid-time to do that sort of thing) I found this video clip of an early reading session:

Eddie is four, I think (though he is so small that he seems younger), and Gertie must be eight.  I love that Gertie gets a little bit cross with her brother for not finishing a word, and that he seems incapable of sitting still, even for a second. Still, some early seeds of reading love were being sown in both directions.

Four years later Eddie's working his way through the third in the Harry Potter series and begging me to buy him a wand.

'Twelve pounds for a stick?' was Hearth-father's unimpressed response. I think remote learning day two might involve whittling a wand from oak.




Currently Reading: The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

More Teething Trouble

It's fair to say that our tooth fairy doesn't have the best record. If she was in my employment I'd probably sack her. She is dreadfully unreliable and sometimes forgets to come on time. Sometimes she is unable to find the tooth and wakes the owner up accidentally during the search. She doesn't often communicate like other tooth fairies seem to, and when she does leave a note, her writing is 'too big' - apparently.

Eddie lost a tooth this week. Hearth mother and father had been busy doing a play while dealing with September, back to school routines, the aftermath of puppy-gate and a new member of the family (we have a teenage German exchange student staying with us).

The tooth fairy was up to her old tricks again.

'She didn't come!' cried a distraught Eddie upon waking yesterday morning.

'What do you mean?' I called, frowning at Hearth-father and fumbling frantically in my purse.

Hearth Father's palm was duly crossed and he took up the, er,  baton. 'Now then, let's see. I bet she did. Nothing there under the pillow? Are you sure? Let's look under the...mattress, just in case.'

Lo and behold: a single shiny pound coin. Magic. Sleight of hand. Disaster averted. Eddie was ecstatic. For a moment.

'But she didn't take the tooth!' he wailed.

'No-o. No, she didn't. Um...Perhaps she was disturbed in the night. Maybe you woke up too soon.'

This was followed by some hasty improvisation of fairy folklore.

'She might come back for it tonight?' He added, rather desperately. 'Perhaps that's what happens in these, um, cases...'

Thankfully, the tooth fairy had a better memory in the evening. But there were whispered discussions across the landing.

'She wouldn't just take it and leave nothing...'

'Do you think she would leave another coin?'

'Well, it has always been a two pound coin for the first big front tooth...'

'Fair enough.'

Some urgent checking of pockets and purses ensued.

'I've only got a bloody two quid coin!'

'Ssssssh. Give it here.'

'But then he'll have had three pounds!'

'Never mind. It'll have to do. So be it.'

Thus Eddie came down to breakfast in jubilant mood this morning, his trouser pockets heavy with gold; and was last overheard in the playground regaling his friends with the story of how he tricked the tooth fairy...

Currently reading: Mapp & Lucia by EF Benson