Henry Berry's blog

Thursday, 11 February 2016

GIVE A FOOL ENOUGH ROPE .....

and he'll start a rope factory?

and he'll still buy slip on shoes?

and he'll think it's a python?

and he'll try and tie Continents together?

he'll coil it?

and he'll swim after a leaving ship?

he'll tie himself up?

and never the twine shall meet?

and he'll think he's jack in the beanstalk?

and he will try and ring the bells

and he'll still be looking for the candle

he still won't be able to skip

and he'll try and eat it

and he'll attach two cans to make trunk calls

and you'll end up with a very well protected boxing ring

and he'll try and climb Everest

give a fool enough rope and he'll become leader of the opposition

Thursday, 4 February 2016

There are parents who resent the noise of their children. I do not. When the boys were small, their play, and even their bickering, was music to my ears. After I got divorced, when it represented discontinuous bouts of desired normality, all the more so. The Mini Madam's dawn to dusk musical chirpings have been magical to me.

But I'm struggling. The Mini Madam has had braces fitted "to correct a slight overbite".

This abrades me, as follows.

Firstly, I loathe dentists, and haven't myself been to see one in fifteen years. When Big Madam went, with some suspected impairment, she emerged from the process several thousand pounds lighter. She likes dentists. Even when she was "hard up", I uncovered a bill from, no kidding a Harley Street dentist who was a peer of the realm. It had quite a few noughts on it.

Secondly, instead of singing and chattering with beauty, Mini Madam now addresses me as if she were brain damaged. Hard to bear.

Thirdly, her every conversation is about the accursed braces. This is because, somehow, having the damned things is seen by her classmates as cool, a kind of rite of passage to a pre teenage status point. I know this fascination must eventually fade, but meanwhile I am robbed of the open minded curiosity of a beloved companion.

Finally, what is being "corrected" is so slight and so cosmetic, not to say so temporary, that anyone but the venal dentistry professional, would say leave well alone.

Whilst the bill was private I had some sort of veto. That it is being footed by the NHS robs me of this.

Big Madam has noticed that I am silent and taciturn.

The music's changed. I'm finding it hard to dance.

I came across a view that there are three phases to parenting - protecting, tolerating, and releasing.

I am tolerating. Just.