Characterisation through Rubik's Cubes

I owned one in the eighties (who didn't?) but was never interested enough to solve a Rubik's cube.

According to an official-sounding website : 'In 1974, a young Professor of architecture in Budapest named Erno Rubik created an object that was not supposed to be possible. His solid cube twisted and turned - and still it did not break or fall apart. With colourful stickers on its sides, the Cube got scrambled and thus emerged the first “Rubik’s Cube”. It took well over a month for Erno to work out the solution to his puzzle. Little did he expect that Rubik’s Cube would become the world’s best-selling toy ever. As a teacher, Erno was always looking for new, more exciting ways to present information, so he used the Cube’s first model to help him explain to his students about spatial relationships. Erno has always thought of the Cube primarily as an object of art, a mobile sculpture symbolizing stark contrasts of the human condition: bewildering problems and triumphant intelligence; simplicity and complexity; stability and dynamism; order and chaos.

Well, in our household it seems to illustrate not just stark contrasts in the human condition, but start contrasts in character.

Presented with a cube each, they have responded in very different ways.

Gilby has spent hours meticulously researching solutions. (I suspect that Father Christmas might even bring him a book on it.) He takes it in logical stages and is making good, if somewhat slow, progress. His eight-year-old mind wants to understand this thing.

Eddie has...ripped the stickers off and made the whole thing black so that it is perpetually 'solved'.

Christmas According to Gertie

It began a few weeks ago with the raised eyebrows, mocking tone of voice and fingers making inverted commas around the word 'Santa'. For Gertie, aged eight, some of the magic of Christmas seemed to have been lost.

And yet it has been something of a social whirl since she broke up from school. There have been parties and play dates and sleepovers. In fact, she has barely spent a night at home and when she has it has usually been accompanied by a friend. And many of them seem to be just that little bit less cynical and worldly wise than Gertie; and I imagine that over those late night bonding gossips and midnight feasts (the sweet wrappers and orange peel beneath her bed is a sight to behold) the question of the man in red must have come up.

And there has been a definite shift in attitude in these final few days. So, whether it is posturing for the sake of her younger brothers, a kind of 'Santa agnosticism', or a last ditch attempt to make sure that her stocking was filled - more magical discussion and less eye-rolling has taken place (the Santa-tracker app was also instrumental) and all is well.

Currently reading: The Road That Led To Where by Sally Gardner

Currently driving: Triumph Spitfire in Pageant Blue.  Clever Hearth-Father in his choice of Christmas present! Who needs Santa?

8 Reasons Not To Live in a Castle

Christmas 2013 has been spent at Harburn House in West Lothian, a Georgian mansion set in 3000 acres of glorious Scottish countryside. It enabled twenty-one of us, from three generations of family, to all spend Christmas together in luxurious surroundings. All the young cousins could romp around together, and the adults could too, for that matter.


Sitting at my dressing table each morning with the four poster bed reflecting in the mirror made me feel like a character in a Jane Austen novel. Walking Kempy in such beautiful, tranquil countryside, with hills rising majestically in the distance, was dreamy.


So, before I get too carried away with the romance of the whole thing and decide that my real life is inadequate by comparison, I've decided to focus on all the reasons why I really, really wouldn't want to live in a glorious castle.

1. It is a very, very long walk to the nearest pub.

2. You get achy legs from having to keep going up and down colossal flights of stairs. Longer than four days here and I would end up with calves the size of large pheasants.

3. Hanging Christmas decorations becomes a life-threatening mission given the height of the ceilings.

4. There are so many bathrooms that choosing where to have a bath or shower becomes a major decision.

5. The drapes on one's four-poster-bed block out the light from one's bedside lamp, making night-time reading difficult.

6. There's no mobile phone signal, and fairly intermittent wifi, so it's difficult to boast about being here without constant access to social media.

7. Whatever you want is inevitably an awfully long way away from where you happen to be. On occasion I found myself three floors away from my slippers.

8. And, linked with number seven on the list, you have to shout very loudly indeed to be heard whenever you do want something.


But aside from those little niggles, it really has been a magical Christmas. Father Christmas managed to find his way here, alleviating the fears of the children. And though it didn't settle, we even had snow flurries throughout the day on Christmas Eve. I'll just try not to think too much about the journey home.

Feel the Fear...

Gilby has become very, very jumpy.  The terrible twos have become the terrified threes.  He is afraid of...well, everything, really. If we are at home he must be in the same room as me, and he must close the door behind us, after taking a fearful look beyond to make sure that nothing is following us in.  Windows are a cause for concern; they must be carefully scanned for any lurking monsters.  Any unexpected noise makes him very, very tense. Tears are never very far away.  This has been a sudden and rapid decline over the last six weeks or so. 

He won't admit to his fears though.  Doors must be closed because he is 'cold'.  He doesn't want to be alone because he is 'a little bit tired'.  Going to bed is a prolonged process of coaxing, but it is not because he is scared, but usually because he has a 'tummy ache'.  But he did whisper in my ear that sometimes he sees and hears things.  Like most three year old's he has a vivid imagination and is able to conjure monsters from most harmless shapes and objects. 

He helped me dismantle the tree (lights packed away in a carefully marked box, incidentally), but seemed unduly concerned about when we were getting a new one.  I thought he was sad that it was going to be a whole year to wait until all the excitement began again.

But, last night, I finally got close to the truth.  He thinks he can hear Santa's footsteps...

That bloke's got a lot to answer for! In the interests of creating magic around Christmas I have inadvertently given my son some kind of complex...

Help!

What is the correct protocol when one's four-year-old has found the 'Father Christmas' presents stashed in the under-stairs-cupboard on Christmas Eve?

Dear Father Christmas

This was dictated to me by number one daughter yesterday:

Dear Father Christmas,

I really have been a very good girl. For ages. I have tried not to be naughty. I haven't done any snatching from Jenna or Emily at nursery, and definitely no biting or scratching. I have used the new grown-up toothpaste that Mummy told me too, even though it makes my tongue hurt. I haven't got my clothes dirty. I have gone to bed when I'm told and I haven't got up in the night. I haven't had any accidents for absolutely ages. I eat up all the things that I am told too, and even when I really, really don't like them I will have three mouthfuls.

Because I have been such a good girl, I really hope that you will bring me a space hopper and a scooter and a Hello-Kitty-cat and a clock for my room. Maybe some toy food as Kempton chewed some of it. Toy milk, please. She chewed that up.

I think that my brother, Gilby, would like a football, a tambourine and cars and a tractor. He has been a good boy too and hardly ever cries now.

With lots of love, and I'm very excited,
Gertie
(Self signed, with nine kisses)

Luckily, Santa already knew about the scooter and the space-hopper. And I am touched that she thought to ask on behalf of her brother.

I have no idea what a Hello-Kitty-Cat is and I can't think why a three year old would want a clock, except that there was one on the wall in the kitchen when she was trying to think about what to ask for. I notice there is no mention of Peppa Pig, so Santa may have misjudged her (rapidly waning, it seems) affections for old Peppa.

And toy milk? I think that this is the last year we will get away so lightly...

On Stockings

Ho ho ho, he's nearly here. And Gertie's just about got a grip on the whole thing, with one or two minor confusions. She keeps insisting, for instance, that we must get to Bethlehem by tomorrow. I've explained the problems with the traffic because of the snow, but she's not convinced.

Last year she was a bit too young at nineteen months to do the whole Christmas thing, in spite of my very best efforts. She couldn't get the hang of the word 'stocking', and insisted that Father Christmas was going to put presents in her 'tight'. I thought this quite an impressive use of the singular at the time.

This year, aged a bit more than two and a half, she has got a far better idea, and we have hung all our stockings around the fireplace ready for the arrival of Santa. ("Not Santa Claws, Mummy!")

The trouble is that we don't have a stocking for Gilby as he only arrived in July - so he hasn't got last year's one - and I didn't think of it until today.

No matter - Gertie has solved the problem for him. "It's all right, Mummy, Gilby can use one of his socks."

Have you seen the size of a five month old baby's sock? I think this is a tad unfair. So either Gertie hasn't really got the idea at all, or she is in fact rather clever in ensuring that she gets far more gifts than her little baby brother!

Party Pooper

It was Gertie's nursery Christmas party today and she was sick.

This doesn't surprise me in the least because her timing is fantastic. Last year she contracted chicken pox three days before Christmas so that we were in quarantine for the big day. Whole other story - but back to the present. She regularly tells me that she feels sick and my typical response is unsympathetic: "Ok, well finish your lunch and you will feel better; just drink some water and you will feel better; a bit of fresh air and you will feel better..." This morning, however, she seemed genuinely under the weather. Subdued, clingy, and a little shivery.

I was upset. Mostly because I didn't want Gertie to miss her Christmas party and the arrival of Father Christmas ('wrapped, named present to the value of not more than £5' had been supplied by us the week before), partly because we had made a plate of marmite sandwiches as our contribution to the festivities and I didn't want them to go to waste, and a little bit because I was due to be spending the day with an old school friend that I don't get to see very often and it would be distracting enough with the baby, let alone a sick toddler accompanying us. I know: selfish thought. Shouldn't really reveal it in a public forum...

Anyway, the party was fancy dress, so Daddy and I glanced at each other conspiratorially: "Why don't we just try your gold princess dress on with the tiara and see how you feel?"

One glance in the mirror seemed to do the trick and I haven't had the dreaded call from nursery to come and collect her. I do think however that I have discovered the real root of the problem, because my other method of persuasion was along the lines of, "And you don't want to miss Father Christmas do you?"
No response.
"You do want to see Father Christmas?"
Short pause.
"No...I want to see Grumps!"
So she would have preferred to be seeing her grandfather today instead of a random old man she doesn't know. Fair enough!