Life Lessons in the Sun

I am monosyllabic, speechless, lost for words.  So out of character.  My word synapses are sizzled with over-firing.  I’ve spent the past week with Madre.   The weather was beautiful so we stayed put and sat in the garden. We had people over for  lunch in fact we took all our meals in the garden watching the bees flitting around the lavender inbetween breaths. 

One of the very good things that happened to my father – along with the years he spent in the navy – was meeting my mother.  Such a taciturn character (a gene that none of the women in the family inherited) and a sweet, kind man (ditto for me at least) they balanced each other perfectly.  I know sometimes his taciturnity drove my mother mad and probably her loquacity drove him mad, but until he was cruelly taken from her, their’s was a very happy marriage as neither looked for perfection in the other or made the other responsible for their own happiness.  That’s why I will be with Mr. J. until one of us kicks the bucket or he kicks me out.

*****

The boy is back from Luffbra via Newquay sporting a yellow head.

 ”It was a prank for charity.  Five of us did it.  We went to the pound shop.  Funny.  It turned out a different colour on each of us.”  The same five will shortly be visiting us here in Switzerland so if you see five sporty looking lads with orange/yellow/white heads having a larf, you know it’s Ollie’s crew.

“It’s better than a tattoo,” said Madre wisely.

*****

And yesterday Alexia’s top secret farewell party organised by the very forward thinking Ellen and her mum Sarah which took place in our garden.  The whole school year was invited to celebrate the end of their junior school years and to wish Alexia luck in London.  Twenty-one kids swam, ate and boomed away the late afternoon.  Sarah had made a photo album for Alexia and asked each child to write a message which will be perfect in London as a reminder of her friends back home.  It is Rabbit Boy’s turn to write.  He with the Rooney ears, rough edges and parents who breed rabbits for the table and eye us expats suspiciously.  His name is Mikael and as Sarah hands him the book to annotate, the whole year huddle around him.

“Bravo Mikael.  Well done Mikael, look how well you did that A.  Bien fait, tu t’es très bien concentré.”  Squeezing the letters out of this sweet country boy is a team effort and no-one gets left behind.

At the end of the summer Mikael will go down to Nyon to a special learning school.

“Did you like Mikael mummy?” asked Alexia as she drifted off to sleep.

“Very much so.  I think we should invite him again. I don’t think he gets to swim in a pool very often.” 

At the end of their junior school years here most will go up to the big secondary school in the next village over.  Some will go onto smaller private schools and some will go to schools for those with learning disabilities.  Alexia going off to her school in London is more privileged than Mikael there is no doubt, but only on a material level.    They have lived 25 metres apart,  breathed the same air, played on the same football pitch and attended the same village school.  In Switzerland everyone gets the same start and no one can say whose life will be better.  Let us hope they will both have beautiful lives but most importantly let us hope that Mikael and Alexia will always be friends.