I am finding it helpful to focus on having one or two
positive experiences each day with the kids, and with travel, rather than
taking the day as a whole. No surprise there--this seems to be a lesson I must
learn again and again, to manage my expectations. One Saturday the positive
event was finding a fantastic Indian restaurant in Grantham and then
introducing the kids to Costa coffee hot chocolate; one Sunday it was the
lovely service at St. Mary and St. Peter, Harlaxton, and the nice chat with
parishoners and my Meet-a-Family from 1998; it's been a nice walk along the
Grantham canal, or our first walk as a family along the mile to the Greg, or
the beautiful sunset behind Belvoir Castle on a Friday evening, after
introducing the kids and Ben to Eton Mess. It's been seeing the kids'
excitement and adorable-ness when they tried on their school uniforms, or
gratitude that they have playmates here, or the beauty of the fields
post-harvest around the manor. It's getting stuck in to the fifth installment
of the Maisie Dobbs series that the librarian graciously bought for me, getting
to know some new colleagues, and seeing the kids find the Harlaxton bikes
(thank you, Zyggy!). There are many, many kind people here at Harlaxton, and
I've enjoyed my students, too, grateful that I seem to have a good group from
Baker. Oh--it's the first bubble bath I've taken in 12 years (glorious) and the
fun of watching people discover the joys of travel for the first time.
Figuring out transportation to school has been a larger,
more ambiguous and more frustrating task than I'd hoped. There are six
primary-school-aged children at Harlaxton this fall, and, while we were
informed in July that we'd need to taxi the children to school, the numbers
(and even our family, on outings) requires a minibus or two taxis, and costs
£18 each way rather than the £6 that we'd heard and begun to budget for. We
considered multiple alternatives and it's been like a logic puzzle; we even
joked that maybe we should consider boating the children to school on the
Grantham canal, but we always came to the same answer with respect to cost,
time for the children, and energy given for the accompanying parent. The
smartest financial move was to rent a car, which cost us roughly $12 a day for
the three months we need it. We got the car on Saturday this week (school
started Monday) and I felt immediate freedom. I am also disappointed in myself,
as I wanted to be a person who relied more on public transportation and saw
Britain again by train, as I did in 1998 and 2003, but ease and freedom win,
and we are privileged to have that choice. Update--we're
now three days into school and I am so relieved we went with car. Easy for me
to say as I wave to the kids each morning as they drive away with Ben, but I did
get to do pick up yesterday afternoon and all is going smoothly. Ebi made
"9 friends" on the first day and is having that intense pleasure of being
a novelty--she starts Girl Guides on Monday and has met another Eboni in her
grade, and the boys just report that "the other kids were naughty, but I
listened, and there are computers in my classroom." Sacou is learning to
read and we sat last night on a bench looking out over the vale of
Belvoir, so, all in all, not a bad place to read with one's child. I still have
some anxiety about the academic demands of school in the U.K., but they are
young, and seemingly open to change, and I am grateful for that.
We took advantage of that vehicle-having-freedom right away
on Sunday and traveled to Calke Abbey, which I'd read about this summer in Bill
Bryson's latest, The Road to Little
Dribbling. It's a once-great-estate (I'm sure I read 28,000 acres in its
heyday) that saw the passing and near-financial-ruin of its last direct
descendant in 1989. The National Trust has chosen to repair, not restore, the
property and there is peeling ceilings and paint and dusty rooms filled with
treasures--the Harpur-Crewe family were great lovers of natural history, and
collectors, particularly during the Victorian period, and were basically
hoarders as we'd understand it today. Prior to the last descendant's passing,
many rooms of the house were closed off to save money at the end of the
Edwardian period, and it's all a bit sad, and creepy. As a psychologist, it's
clear evidence of a family history of mental illness, too--one baronet only communicated
with his servants by note, shut his once-a-lady's-maid wife off from the rest
of society, and asked to have the dining table set for company every night but
always dined alone. I loved the gardens, the good-ish weather, the playground
for the kids, their engagement with the house itself, and all the sheep. Calke
Abbey is near Melbourne, England, home of Captain Cook, so Ben made some fun
connections too. There's also two bird-hides on the property and lots of room
to run, so it was a good day.
Last Friday I took and early train to London to visit
Freud's home with students--it exceeded my expectations, and reminded this
"seasoned" psychologist how much I owe Freud for the profession I
love. Outside of being in his space and admiring Freud for his genius and
curiosity and liberal-mindedness, I loved the education director, Stefan, and
experienced not a little transference! in trying to impress the clever young
psychoanalyst with my questions. I was back by mid-afternoon (after a shameful
and comforting stop at Chipotle) but I liked being reminded how easy it is to
get to London, even for half a day.
One other struggle we've had, and this is the outside of my
sharing comfort zone here, is figuring out the right balance on managing the
kids' behavior and our expectations of the kids. There's been some highs--they
sat through convocation last week and the high table dinner, and were
delightful--and they are generally respecting our rule that we eat dinner as a
family (not with their peers or college-student buddies). The challenging
behavior is all expected--picking on each other, resisting bedtime, trying to
eat multiple desserts, having a food fight in the new rental car (THANK GOD it
wasn't in the refectory)….and that's tiring but part of it. The tough part of
managing behavior is doing it a) with an audience of 200 people and b) with the
underlying terror that I'm doing it wrong and not enough or too much or in a
way that means that we'll not be invited back or will become a family that
stories are told about or the kids who break something priceless or end up at
the bottom of a well somewhere in the woods and then the news follows us for
three days until Sacou (because it would be Sacou) is rescued and then there
are follow-up stories on every major milestone he hits and we get a Wikipedia
page and we become the people that get talked about like the family whose son
got in the gorilla cage or was drowned by an alligator at a Disney resort or
I'll spend the whole fall so anxious about it all that I won't be present and
who wants to remember those five months of their childhood that mom was a glass
case of emotion because our family comes first, even before Harlaxton and IT'S
EXHAUSTING so let it go already and why can't they just appreciate how
marvelous this is and just get over the stupid broken crayons in your cheap
packet that I bought you as a distraction so I could wonder around the market,
dammit. Another update: This has
gotten WAY easier since school has started and since all three of our children
have fallen in total love with the Baker students who have spent the past two
evenings riding bikes, playing soccer, and even cutting up their dinner for our
kids, (who are wholly capable of cutting up their own dinner). Sacou had a
dream this Monday evening, (just before the first of two Harlaxton fire alarms)
that he and Thor saved one of the students from a fire and has been talking
about it on the reg--he is very proud of himself, and one can assume that Sacou
was hero and Thor just had an assist.
Yesterday, Wednesday, was a great day--"gong-ing"
the start of British Studies in the morning, doing my first barista shift in
the bistro, having a day date with Ben at The Greg, and even reading for
pleasure a bit. I'm having the joy, once again, that comes from travel, of
re-evaluating the way you do things at home--not having all the time planned,
rejecting FOMO, and just sitting and talking with your partner, which is
sometimes difficult to do in our life in the U.S. I had two glasses of wine
before bed and watched the Bakeoff with some colleagues (my favorites are still
in), so a fantastic day.
This weekend we're off to Cambridge and the coast, just day
trips, and Ben is going to a nature preserve on Friday to go birding while I
teach. Friday evening we're getting the "secret tour" from Andy, who
will show the kids secret staircases, and Monday and Tuesday are time for the
first round of exams.
Thanks for reading-
R
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