I don’t want to wish my kids’ lives away, but I’m practically counting the days until Crox Minima leaves primary school this summer and goes to high school in the autumn. Why? Because primary schools seem to be the number one source of contagion round here – and Crox Minima’s school is the most pestilent of any school I have ever come across. A week or two ago the little cherub brought home the most vile cold I’ve had in ages – but this last weekend has been the kicker, a totally ghastly winter vomiting bug that’s floored all of us. At the moment I ache all over; the slightest exertion makes me break out in a cold sweat; and I feel like I’ve got courtesy legs*.
I’ve had enough.
High Schools are great. Crox Minor prinks gaily off to her academy of secondary learning each morning, and gallops back again in the evening, and we parents have hardly any cause to enter the premises.
Primary, schools, though, are different. Because Crox Minima’s school is way out in the boonies, she has to be chauffered there and back, and there is perforce a certain amount of time spent hanging around in the chilly playground with the Scrummies**, many of who have even smaller children in tow, these little vectors of disease darlings having as yet no idea about personal hygiene. School playgrounds, I deem, provide empirical support for the hygiene hypothesis, or for the contention that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
To cap it all, after another long and painful night, we were visited by our builders who finally wanted to make a start knocking bits off the Maison Des Girrafes, which in the next two or three months is to be converted into the Palazzo di Girrafi.
Now, watch carefully. Here is a rare back view of the Maison Des Girrafes, taken from a Standard Location. Over the next few weeks the conservatory will be replaced by a two-storey extension. I’ll be posting pictures as the works progress.
But Norfolk builders are lovely. They took pity on us and said they’d come back tomorrow instead. Even better, they took pity on us with rich, warm, Norfolk accents – the kind of accent that makes you feel calm and reassured. I could listen to it all day. Bootiful.
* You know when you take your car to the garage for a service and they lend you a ‘courtesy car’ that you can drive, just about, but the controls are all in the wrong places? Courtesy legs are just like that, only with legs, not cars.
** Scrummies = School Run Mummies. School Run Daddies are included on sufferance.
UPDATE: the conservatory has now been disassembled and is now disported at various scenic locations in the Jardin Des Girrafes. If anyone wants to buy it, remove it and re-erect it at their own location, make me an offer! It’s 3m deep and 4.2m wide.
The contagion culprit might also be the age of the kids in primary vs secondary school, as opposed to what those schools are like per se – teenagers tend to be more immune to things that younger folks because they’ve got a microbiological passé. I do sympathize with you, though – it’s so rotten being sick! I hope you all feel better soon.
Well, yes, that too. After a certain age the kids don’t fall ill quite so much. But that doesn’t stop them bringing home the bugs to infect the long-suffering parents.
I had a separate communication from my colleague Ms. T. C. of Glasgow who has kindergarten-aged kids – she has to actually go into the warm fug of the building to collect her charges, all the while avoiding contact with the adorable cherubs rushing straight out of the loo… for her, even primary school will be a blessing.
I hope you all feel better soon, Henry – the norovirus is a vicious, nasty little bugger, and a vaccine can’t come soon enough.
I love the term “courtesy legs”.
Thanks Cath – oddly enough I can’t ever remember suffering a dose of this – or perhaps previous doses were so horrible that all traces of them have been expunged from my memory.
Sorry that you and the other Croxii have been ill, and hope you recover soon. My immune system was at its peak when I was in high school, and worked both in a pediatrician’s office and on the pediatric ward of a large charity hospital. Wish I could have isolated and bottled that immunity. Now my immune system just has panicked overblown responses to things like ragweed, mountain cedar, and every single species and subtype of mold spore.
Is that your kitchen on the right in the photo? I can’t remember the layout of the Maison de Girrafes … and I’ve lived in the Land of Crap Detached Houses for too long anyway.
I should have said that we live in one half of a semi. The half of the building you see disappearing stage right in the picture is inhabited by our neighbours – who have already done the double-height extension thingy, as you see. We’re going to replace the conservatory (storing it for possible later resurrection) with a proper structure – a big kitchen/diner (I’m going to make all the units and cupboards) with a farmhouse table (I’ll make that too) that we can all sit round and drink wine with the grown ups (when the minor Croxi monopolise the sitting room); bake cakes, and, well, crochet marine invertebrates.
That sounds excellent! My friends in Cambridge (refugees from the Land of Crap Detached Houses) had a single story extension built at the back of their terraced house – it was beautiful, but they had all sorts of trouble getting the plans approved. One of their neighbors is a very obstructionist lawyer (solicitor? attorney? – I’m not sure of the proper UK term), who placed further restrictions on the project. For example, the skylight nearest the legal beagle’s abode is bolted shut and can never be opened. Parking battles at the front and back of the property are ongoing.
My restrictions here are things like “no garden gnomes in the front yard.” ::rolls eyes::
People round here seem to be pretty easy-going, thankfully. When we submitted our plans to the planning authority, they advised informally that we’d have to move the extension a bit, to avoid obstructing our neighbours. Which we did. So it was all passed. Of course, there’ll be several phases of building inspection to go through before all is complete.
Houses here usually have fairly restrictive covenants on their use. The Maison Des Girrafes has an impressively long list, perhaps because it is an ex-Council (Project) house. One of the restrictions is that we’re not allowed to keep pigs in the garden (we do – but they’re plastic).
And my neighbours all seem to love the chickens. Those who’ve said anything at all say they find the clucking noise nostalgic – and of course they all love the eggs.
I think the laissez-faire attitude is all part of being in a very working-class neighbourhood. I hear that petty squabbles about parking and gnomes are more common in parts of Cromer inhabited by Daily-Mail-reading bungaloid nimbyist curtain twitchers, who have pretentions to lower-middle-classedness. And probably crocheted covers on their loo rolls.
A guy I knew in Glasgow was once interrupted during dinner by a salesman knocking on the door to try and persuade him to add a conservatory to his dwelling. He pointed out to the intruder that a) he rented, rather than owned, his flat, and b) did the salesman not notice the two flights of stairs he’d had to climb to reach the flat’s front door?
100% totally true story.
Commiserations, Henry. As I’ve said elsewhere, over at Chez Elliott (children aged 6.5 and 2.5) we are praying (in a wholly secular fashion, so probably to the Flying Spaghetti Monster) that we make it through the Winter without a seasonal dose of noro.
Deeply impressed by your writer-ly dedication in blogging your own infestation, BTW.
I shall pray for you too, to the Lares Des Girrafes. Whatever it takes. This gut-rot is terrible!
Owwiee. I hope you’re all recovering now.
We should probably get an extension, for the 13 aquaria Grrl wants to buy. But we’re on the 13th floor, so building one out is not an option.
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These Mutant Microscopic Nanotech Von-Neumann Replicators are everywhere, my child also caught one in Valparaíso, had fever and vomiting, but he lasted only two days was mild.
I hope speedy you’re recovery.
Nice house (English style).
These MNNVNRs are taking over the world!!!