"Deputy Houseparent"

Plymouth boarding house

"Would you be available to cover Mrs. W's maternity leave as a Deputy Houseparent? " the HR lady asked. My first thought was, "What on earth does that mean?". The whole boarding school thing was foreign to me. My kids had been attending Kingham Hill school for several months as day students and every morning we passed the beautiful stone boarding houses yet I still had no idea what happened inside the walls.

      Well, I said yes to the job and soon found out being a houseparent means learning to appreciate the sweetness and quirkiness of 26 boys between the ages of 11 and 14, who generate a lot of muddy clothes and really like to eat biscuits.  

I am now on month 3 of the job and have learned their names, favourite sports and subjects, who does and doesn't get along with who and what kind of food makes them happiest. I also fold lots of laundry, field phone calls and coordinate appointments, put plasters (band-aids) on wounds, nag them to do prep (homework) and act like a mum (mom). Occasionally I sweep the boot room which is full of stinky cleats (football boots) and trainers (tennis shoes) even though that is

supposed to be their job. 

Soon after starting the houseparent job I decided to implement the WORD of the WEEK.. finding the strangest and goofiest words for them to memorize. With help from one of the boarders, a German boy who is quite the linguistic genious, we have come up with words like:

arachibutyrophobia (the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth) and borborygmus (the digestive sounds the intestines make). 

The incentive to learn the word is that the first boy to memorize it gets to choose the flavour of cookies that I bake on Fridays. We call it "Cookie Friday".. it has become wildly popular. One boy who is boarding from Russia yells loudly as he runs in the door, "KOOOKY, KOOOKY"...  it makes me smile every time and conjures up memories of Sesame Street. Please don't confuse cookies with biscuits.. biscuits are what the boys get on a daily basis after sport and before they shower for evening "tea" (dinner). They are pre-packaged treats that break into bits when you bite into them.  Cookies are more of an American thing: homemade and delicious and served piping hot from the oven. On the Friday before Valentine's day I decided they needed to experience sugar cookies decorated with pink frosting and sprinkles. I worked for over an hour mixing, baking and decorating them before setting them on a tray neatly covered with saran wrap while I quickly ran to the corner store for some milk. Upon my return I was dismayed to realize that the dog had discovered how to eat through saran wrap and reach onto counters. 

Scruffy had eaten 40 of the 48 Valentine's cookies for the boys!!!

I think the neighbors must have heard me yelling at the dog as I put him out in the backyard to wait for the pink tinted excrement to pass. That day the boys didn't get cookies.. instead I showed them the picture below to explain the predicament. They forgave me and thanked me for the effort, darling lads.  Actually darling chaps...  they recently informed me that chaps are what they are, no longer wee lads. 

I will miss this interesting assignment when it ends, maybe I will still occasionally stop by Plym house with cookies on Fridays. 

These were supposed to be for my boys.. not the dog!

Some of the boys hanging out after class.. all gave photo permission

The Road to Oxford

BED REST: Fantasy vs Reality

After a week of fever, chills and fluid in my lungs, I finally went to the Dr. last week. After a quick exam she announced that I did indeed have pneumonia and really ought to be on........ BED REST. The Dr. is a woman and after saying this she added, "I know that is impossible for moms but you really should try".   I have always secretly wanted to be put on bed rest, even if for a day.   Bed rest conjures up images of lying in a cozy bed with pillows piled around, a good book in hand, water and snacks within reach and everyone else bustling around taking care of things so you don't have to.  I can almost picture a Downton Abbey kind of scenario where servants in crisp white aprons appear throughout the day to see what they can bring me. Kind of like this: FANTASY 

So I decided to leave out the "you really should try part" and tell my family that I was ordered to be on full BED REST!!! The problem is, no one was home when I returned from the Dr. They were all at school/work. I felt too tired to climb the stairs to the bed so I sat on the coach. Then I realized we had nothing ready for dinner and everyone would be needing to get picked up soon. So I threw something in the oven. Then it was time to drive 15 min to the kids bus stop. I told them about the "bed rest" on the way home and they said, "Bummer, so what are we going to do about dinner?" I ordered the stinkers to clear the table and load the dishwasher after eating and then headed out to pick up the hubby from the train station. He was sympathetic to the Dr's orders and agreed, "Yes just go straight to bed, the chores aren't important, they can wait". I ended up quarantined in the attic since my cough was so loud it shook the whole house. The luxurious bed retreat of my dreams was actually a roll out mat, surrounded by darts and Nerf guns.  I didn't have servants.. they all had too much homework and studying to do. But they did bring me a pot with a spoon to bang around if I couldn't breathe in the middle of the night (a fine substitute for a bell) . 

REALITY

I didn't get served hot soup in bed from a cute tray. Hubby did order take-out Indian food (the only restaurant within a 30 minute radius) and the kids did start a load of laundry. The problem is their standard of housecleaning isn't quite up to par with mine. After just one day there were little piles of dirty clothes seeping out of bedrooms. The dishes were overflowing. The sinks had toothpaste marks. "Just let it go, the chores can wait".. started to really stress me out. How long? Would I be able to wade through the mess to get fresh air? So I decided to do modified bed rest. Which meant I did as many chores as I could and then rewarded myself with a nap on the roll out mat or a good book in the middle of the day for hours on end.  The neighbors showed up every morning to walk the dog once hub and kids were off to work/school. One day I let the dishes go and Hubby did get to them eventually (midnight but who is keeping track?)  It really was kind of nice to let others help.  But bed rest itself was overrated.. unless of course I could be the lady in that picture above. 

The Leisure Suit

I think busyness is an addiction. How do I know? Well, because I am having withdrawals. The adrenaline from the frenetic pace of the 12 months leading up to this move is finally starting to leave my veins. It is an uncomfortable feeling at first, kind of panicky.. "what do I do with this silence and time"? Once the house was unpacked, the piles of move paperwork filed, reimbursement invoices sent and visa applications done... I felt scared. How will this vast amount of unscheduled time possibly be filled with meaningful activities? How do I cherish these empty days and not go crazy?  In my previous life I was working three part-time jobs, serving as housecleaner and cook, attending bible study,  driving soccer carpool four times a week, hiking regularly with friends, volunteering at the kids schools, making baby quilts for friends.. plates were spinning everywhere.  Moving to a tiny village an ocean away from my career and committments was supposed to be a welcome respite. I actually made a list of things I have wanted to do for the last 5 years when things slowed down. Things like: sew a t-shirt quilt, start a blog, catch up on all the photo albums, learn to play guitar.

 I started to feel pressure to get started on the list and actually mildly depressed about my lack of progress on it. SO..A few weeks ago I gave myself permission to just do nothing for awhile. To remind myself to enjoy this temporary season in my life and to embrace the beauty of doing nothing, I bought a leisure suit. Yes you heard me right, a LEISURE suit. That is what it was labeled in the local Lidl grocery store bin where I found it.. "Ladies Leisure Suits £9.99". It was velour. It was gray. It emanated relaxation. I bought it on an impulse. The kids laughed at me when they came home from school and saw me making dinner in my new suit. John glanced at me in confusion when I picked him up from the train station that night. My neighbor Mr. O came to the door for something and when I answered he said, "What is that velour thing you are wearing?" I answered, "This is my new leisure suit" He says, "You paid money for that?"" Why yes I got quite a good deal actually"... and then he laughed and said, "What are you, 80 or something?". We laughed together about it. I can laugh about it but it is my reminder to relax. I can rush to fill my days up with a million things or I can take time to stop, reflect, journal, pray, read and let God direct my time how he leads. I am making strides to do that.. I even sat down the other day to read a few pages of the Winston Churchill biography sitting on our coffee table- in the middle of the day before the laundry was done or dinner was planned. I didn't even feel guilty.. and I may or may not have been wearing my leisure suit.

Signs and Speeding tickets

It's been three months since we moved from the land of wide roads and open spaces to the land of hedge rows and tiny carriage ways. It only took 3 days for me to get my first ticket- a speeding camera in some unnamed village has evidence that I went 35 mph in a 30 mph zone. (This really is ironic since I am usually the slowest person on the roads, clinging perilously to the side as cars whiz by on my right with inches to spare.) I soon learned in traffic school that I should know the speed based on the presence of lamp posts. If there is a lamp post you are in a village and everyone knows it is 30 mph. The elderly gentleman leading the course also informed me in his civilized British accent that the reason that Great Britain drives on the left goes back to the days of horse and carriage when they needed to have their right hands free so that the lead wouldn't get caught in the hedge rows. Good to know! The signs here are quite entertaining as well. 

One of my favorite intersection mazes

Names like this are everywhere..  makes the kids laugh

Yes because I really wanted to climb this sheer wall

 I have never seen an elderly person cross there yet but just in case

 Pedestrian or alien crossing?

My personal favorite: the steaming poo law