Proud, proud, proud

Dylan at Wroxeter (Roman town) last year.

I'm very proud of my son Dylan, who is not only incredibly clever but a chip off the old block when it comes to blogging and reviewing. (In other words, he doesn't blog often, but when he does, it's with some panache ... !)

Dylan is eleven years old. He is obsessed with science and technology, and that is not an exaggeration.

His most recent obsession within those fields is astrophysics.

And I would like to share his review of Stephen Hawking's classic, A Brief History of Time, with you. It's on his book review site, The Book Mangle.

His writing style is not perfect - there are a few errors here! - but for an eleven year old reading a book by Hawking, and attempting to explain some of the contents in an easy-to-follow way, it's really pretty impressive.

Proud, proud, proud ... 

Here's an excerpt from his review:

I warn you, this is not a children's book. I sometimes personally had to read each paragraph several times to get the information in my head, and it felt like I had forgotten the English language ...

Read more on The Book Mangle.  

Labels, and why I like them

Yesterday we had an epic - but also minor - family adventure. Epic because on the face of it something very important happened. Minor because it does not affect our family life in any meaningful way. Life will carry on at home much as it did before. But a new label has come into our lives, and we are very pleased to welcome it onboard.

What happened was that my ten year old son was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome.

As a family, we have known for the past three years that Dylan has Tourette's. You can't live with someone with this syndrome and NOT KNOW.

"It would be hard to imagine a less likely troublemaker."

But although he already had a diagnosis of autism and ADHD, like his twin brother, the only concession to this further condition was a side note on his file that Dylan has 'tics'. Tic Disorder is a milder and more general condition than Tourette's, and usually of shorter duration - though medical opinions vary. In particular, Tic Disorder is fairly common in schools, with as many as 1 in 100 children showing possible symptoms.

So yesterday we took our son to yet another consultant at yet another hospital for yet another opinion, and FINALLY, after speaking to him for fifteen minutes, this new consultant pronounced it Tourette Syndrome.

But why is this a good thing?

Isn't Tourette Syndrome just another problematic life-long label, like ADHD and autism, to be hanging about our son's neck at the tender age of 10?

In some ways, yes. But the truly vital thing is the timing of this diagnosis, rather than its significance in general. Because a diagnosis makes no difference to his condition. There is no cure for Tourette's. There is no particular treatment, though some doctors believe in medication to alleviate symptoms. (We are not keen on medication, having already gone down that route in the past and disliking the side effects.) It may last his whole life, it may go away on its own, it may make his teen years a living hell.

"There's a word for what he does, and that word means he is not to blame."

But when he starts secondary school this September, his new teachers will be handed a file detailing his special needs, and now the tag Tourette Syndrome will feature on it. And when he tosses his head violently twenty-five times in a lesson, or makes a repeated high-pitched noise like dry windowscreen-wipers throughout his school assembly, he will not be singled out for punishment. Or if he is, we will be able to object on the grounds of this official diagnosis.

And when you have a child who, from the age of five, was humiliated and made to sit apart from the rest of the class for 'wilful disobedience', for an inability to sit still or work quietly, for making funny faces or noises when the teacher was in full flow, to be able to point to a diagnosis that completely explains his behaviour is a miracle.

Let's be clear about this. My son has moments of naughtiness, like every child, but on the whole he is well-behaved. We will not be treating this label as an excuse for genuinely rude or disruptive behaviour. Though it would be hard to imagine a less likely 'troublemaker'. My son is excruciatingly polite to adults, a favourite with the teachers at his new (more relaxed) village school, and marvellously intelligent, enquiring and eloquent. People remark on it everywhere we go, often with amazed expressions at his responses.

But Dylan also has these other difficult conditions that mean he sometimes misreads non-verbal signals, or prefers his own company to playing with peers, or can't sit still for longer than thirty seconds and will rock violently if forced to do so, or can't help repeatedly making odd squeaking and sniffing noises - often at the most embarrassing moments for him.

So that is why I like labels. Because this particular label will save my son from being labelled a troublemaker at his new secondary school, and help him to concentrate on his school work without worrying about being excluded for 'disobedience'.

I know many people hate labels - especially for long-term issues like this - and would prefer not to be stuck with them. But labels that save our children from being discriminated against are nothing short of fantastic.

And Dylan himself, having seen other kids with Tourette's on Youtube and knowing - absolutely knowing - that he has the condition too, is very pleased with his diagnosis. There's a word for what he does, and that word means he is not to blame. When you're a born people-pleaser, and you've been consistently blamed for things you can't control since you were old enough to sense the irritation and disapproval of your teachers, the sense of liberation and relief that accompany such a realisation cannot be overstated.

So thank you, Monsieur de la Tourette.

For those interested in knowing more about the syndrome, here is an extreme case of Tourette's on the This Morning show.

Enough Reading, Start Writing!

It can be a lonely life, being a writer, and rather low on feedback. So it was a pleasure to catch up today with the kind words a few people had to say about my poem 'Day Tripping' on the Peony Moon site earlier this year.

Reading the comments, although fairly short, was a reminder that I need to do more writing and less reading - which is all I seem to have been doing in recent months, apart from the odd essay for my studies at Warwick. (Hence the long silence on Raw Light.) Reading is fabulous and utterly essential, but there comes a point as a writer when you have to say 'Basta!', lay the books aside and pick up the pen. Or pencil, in my case.

Which is precisely what I shall be doing, later this week and next, despite my pressing need to revise for forthcoming exams.

Though this week must also involve a quick trip down to Cornwall to see my eldest daughter. An important visit, since the latest news is that I'm going to be a grandmother!

This Week ...

Sorry not to have been online much this past week, but on Tuesday one of my five year old twin sons, who had been off school with tonsillitis, was taken seriously ill with a viral complication. He was transferred that night by ambulance from our local hospital to the nearest university hospital, where he still is. I've been sleeping beside his bed during the nights and my husband's been taking the day shifts, so there's not been much time for checking email or blogging. (Rest has been a bit thin on the ground for me, due to frequent checks on his vital signs during the night, so my few daytime hours at home are mainly occupied with grabbing a quick meal and catching up on some sleep.)

Luckily, he seems much happier now than when he was admitted and is responding well to treatment. But it may be a few days yet before any of us are able to return to 'normal' life. Meanwhile I hope anyone who's expecting a book in the post from me or waiting for a reply to an email can be patient just a little longer.

Anglo-Saxon Reconstruction Village at West Stow

Back in the summer, after a violent altercation with some over-zealous home school blog-ring folks, I set my home school blog to Private. That means only my family - and any interested friends - can catch up with what we've been doing recently on the home education front. However, the drawback of that decision is that people searching for photos and other information on various of my blog entries - such as the following one on the Anglo-Saxon Village at West Stow - are no longer able to access the information.

So, since I'm steeped in poetry revisions and not yet ready to blog about Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, I'm reposting it here for the world to see. Apologies for those who only want to read about writing on this blog, but normal service should be resumed once I've finished tinkering with the latest draft of my third collection.


REPOSTED FROM OUR HOME SCHOOL BLOG: A trip to West Stow in 2006



Last month we took a two-day trip from the Midlands across Cambridgeshire into Norfolk and Suffolk. One of the best places we visited in this brief trip was the Anglo-Saxon Reconstruction Village at West Stow. This is a small portion of an Anglo-Saxon village reconstructed on an original site where many artefacts have already been found. The work was supervised and carried out by archaeologists and other experts using traditional methods and trying to get the reconstructed 'village' as close as possible to how they think the Anglo-Saxons might have lived.

The kids absolutely loved their trip. We bought some handcrafted kids' swords and bows and arrows in the shop, for messing about with afterwards in nearby Thetford forest, plus some books on runes and Old English. Here are some photos from our day at the centre:



The village consists of five or six buildings in a loose cluster: individual huts for living and sleeping in, such as the one pictured above, a larger meeting house, and several crafts buildings such as a hut for spinning and weaving wool on looms, a hut for firing pots and woodworking, for grinding corn, and also some covered or open areas where animals could be kept.



The kids enjoyed pretending to cook around this open hearth. People used to think there would be a hole in the thatch, rather like a chimney, for smoke to escape, but this is now considered unlikely. I presume smoke would simply have drifted up and slowly out through the thatched roof. Those Saxon huts must have been very smoky places on a windless day!



The huts are mainly constructed of wood, with the typical thatched roof you can see in the picture. Some are different styles, constructed as experiments to see which style of housing would be most practical and provide the most likely explanations for some difficult questions the archaeologists wanted to answer.



One of their main problems was the existence of a mysterious pit excavated underneath each original Anglo-Saxon hut on the site. Various explanations for its use were considered, but in the end, the archaeologists have decided to remain open to ideas on that score, as it's hard to prove definitively what the pit was used for.

Here's a lovely atmospheric shot of M. lurking behind a hanging pot on one of the raised 'sleeping' areas. As you can see, it's very dark inside these little huts, especially with the fire unlit and the door pulled to.



The roof beams were probably used for hanging dried food on (for smoking, perhaps, over the fire) and also for general storage of equipment, such as nets, household goods and cooking utensils.



Still, I'm sure that with the fire crackling nicely on those long dark evenings, and an enclosed bed of rushes and perhaps even furs to retire to after the last chores had been done, and perhaps a little poetry had been listened to, an Anglo-Saxon hut would have felt like quite a cosy place, even in our British winters.



The wool-crafting, woodworking, corn grinding and pot-firing workshops would have been built apart from the living quarters, as they are now at West Stow. There were also areas set aside for corn and other crops to be grown and for animals to graze, with probably a small pig-sty of some description on the site. Chickens would have had the run of the place, and some of the more vulnerable animals may possibly have spent the worst of the winter indoors with the villagers!



The Anglo-Saxons used a Runic Alphabet for some of their writing, particularly when commemorating something important or when writing on a sacred object.

This is a Rune on the doorpost of one of the reconstructed houses. It represents the letter 'h', as you should be able to guess, and would have been engraved on stone monuments, weapons and armour. This runic writing system is called the furthorc, after the first few letters, just as our alphabet comes from the first two letters of the Greek writing system, alpha and beta (α & β).



It was a fantastic day out and, if you're a history hound, I can thoroughly recommend the trip. Take boots for the mud on wet days though, and a picnic if it's fine weather! There is a cafe there but eating al fresco under the trees, surrounded by new oaks, is a lovely experience after visiting the Saxon village. And if you go into the nearby forest areas, be prepared for some Blair Witch Project scenes in the woods afterwards. That's a wooden broadsword my son is wielding there, by the way!

Find some more text and pictures about the West Stow Anglo-Saxon Reconstruction Village at 'Experimental Archaeology'.

And, since this particular post is now attracting so many visitors every month, here's another link, this time to the Friends of West Stow Village: more photographs, opening times, and other useful information.

Happy Birthday, Boys!

Left to right: Dylan, Mo & Indi, making music

In a very short time, it will be July 13th, which marks my twin sons' fifth birthday. Hard to believe it's only five years, it feels much longer since they were born.

At 38 weeks, I was in induced labour for about twenty minutes, after problems with the lead twin's heartbeat fluctuating over a series of days, then suddenly the room filled with people and I was handed a consent form for an emergency caesarean section. Dylan's heartbeat, as lead twin, had dropped through the floorboards because of cord compression, and they told me if he wasn't delivered immediately, he would die. It was an awful moment, not least because I'd been hoping to give birth to them naturally.

An incredibly short time later, probably less than half an hour, I was sitting up in a recovery room with two tiny red-faced babies on my chest.

Now they're five years old, and both beautiful, high-spirited and extremely affectionate boys. Mo is the one under the bucket!



Here's the poem I wrote for that birth - and thanks to Anon (see comments below) for showing me how to indent the line!

*

Twins
(for Dylan and Morris)

We do not know you yet, you are nothing
but bone and fluid and mass to us.
They lift you out through your necklace
of cord, slippery and indignant,
and suddenly you’re inspired, all lungs,
pure beetroot. Your brother,
tucked up tight beneath my breast-bone,
does not want to wake. His mild eyes
open in surprise to a world of gowned figures
and white masks.
                              Stitched-up
and emptied from the waist downwards
like a breakfast egg, I lie back
with my arms full of babies. Your father sits
with a perpetual grin on his face
like a man in a Greek comedy.

These lights above the bed are your first stars.
Urgent with milk-haze, you root
for the breast and I gather you in, begin
with your own names.


*

This poem appears in my second collection, Boudicca & Co, published last year by Salt Publishing.