Cultural French/UK Differences: The Lollipop Man

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children, cultural differences, education, France, French, fun, funny, Humor, Parenting, school, stay-at-home Dad

 

For the uninitiated a lollipop man is a man/woman who stands at the side of a Zebra crossing, ensuring that vehicles stop so the children can safely cross the road. Lollipop men/women take their name from the brightly-coloured giant lollipop-like signs they hold, this catches drivers’ attentions and they then stop (or accelerate, depending on who’s behind the wheel). In the UK they usually look exactly as the chap in the picture above, generally retired and with an affable, approachable nature.

 

They do not look like this in France.

 

The lollipop man in our old village in the UK was called Paul.

 

I think the French lollipop man is called TK100016.

 

Paul wore a hi-viz jacket and whatever clothes he had decided to put on that day.

 

French lollipop man wears standard issue uniform. Standard issue for the riot police anyway.

 

Paul would always have a friendly word to say to you, and would ask how the kids were doing.

 

The French lollipop man shouted at me today because I slightly jogged over the crossing.

 

After his shift ended Paul could often be seen walking his dog around the village.

 

As soon as his shift ends the French lollipop man plugs himself in to recharge.

 

Paul liked gifts at Christmas, and would never refuse a bottle of wine.

 

I think if I gave the French lollipop man any kind of gift he would immediately, and violently, arrest me, considering it an attempt to bribe a government official.

 

Paul had a lollipop.

 

I’m 95% sure the French lollipop man has a taser. He definitely doesn’t have a lollipop.

 

Paul let us take his picture once, for one of my son’s school projects.

 

If I attempted to take a photo of the French lollipop man he would pick me up by my throat with one hand, with his other he would take my phone off me and crush it.

 

Paul used his lollipop to stop traffic.

 

French lollipop man uses his eyes.

 

I liked Paul.

 

French lollipop man scares me.

Decoding The First Day At The New School In France…

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children, education, France, French, funny, Humor, school, stay-at-home Dad

 

 

Me: ‘have you had a good day then?’

 

My Son: ‘Yes, I really enjoyed it’

 

Me: ‘Did you talk to lots of other children?’

 

My Son: ‘Yes, and I made friends with a girl from London’

 

Me: ‘Wow! So there’s another English girl there?’

 

My Son: ‘Yes she doesn’t speak much English, just ‘oui”

 

Me: ‘Errrrr…’

 

My Son: ‘And she has London on her t-shirt’

 

Me: ‘Wait…so was she from London or did she just have London on her t-shirt?’

 

My Son: (talking to me in a tone reserved for simpletons) ‘She was from London!’

 

Me: ‘Oh great, so you have an English friend then?’

 

My Son: ‘Yes, but she doesn’t talk much English’

 

I give up at this point and turn my attention to my daughter, who is happily munching an apple.

 

Me: ‘Did you have a good first day?’

 

My Daughter: ‘Yes!’

 

Me: ‘Did you talk to many people?’

 

My Daughter: (smiling) ‘I didn’t talk to anybody’

 

 

 

We found out a couple of days later that the girl in question was not actually English, she just wore a t-shirt with ‘London’ written on it. Honestly, six-year-olds, eh? The Enigma machine has nothing on them!

 

Sick Beds And Trapped Bees At The New School In France…

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Bees, children, education, France, French, funny, Humor, school, teachers, Traditions, training

One of the actual classrooms we went in, this one is where you learn English – I did have to point out though that ‘Britain’ is not spelt with two ‘T’s. Whether this will have enamored me to our new host or not, only time will tell.

It’s a miserable wet Tuesday morning and my son, my daughter, myself and the (French) mother-in-law are visiting my son’s new school. We are visiting it during the school holidays and the head-teacher has very nicely agreed to open it, so that we can all have a look around and see what my curly-haired boy thinks of it.

It’s a huge building which, the headteacher informs us is ‘Very old…deux-cent’ (200 years). There are many rooms with all kinds going on in each one and, obviously, lots and lots of French writing. I find this daunting and I’m not the one that will be attending, but my son loves it.

We enter one room and the headteacher motions to my children to approach a large box on wheels that appears to be some kind of cabinet. He then, in a very magician-esque way, pulls off one of the panels on the cupboard/box/thingy to reveal BEES! Lots and lots of bees. The idea, he says, is that the kids look after the bees, the bees make honey, and the kids eat the honey.

After showing us both sides of the bee-box he then puts the cover back on, sealing the bees away. ‘What a holiday they are having!’ I say in broken French to my belle-mere ‘The kids go off on vacation to the lakes, or the south of France, and they get to spend two weeks bumping into each other in the dark in a big box’. Potential bee-right violations aside it’s another great idea that this school has – they also have some mini-allotments at the entrance to encourage the kids to start to grow their own food.

Bit too close to the entrance if you ask me – if this was England anything they grew would get plundered when they reached a ripened state.

We carry on and enter the staff room, dominated by the head-teacher’s desk in the centre of the room. He then shows us the other parts of the room (It’s very Scooby Doo – there seem to be doors that lead off into other areas all over the place) and indicates the sick bed.

Now I can’t speak for everybody but in my village back in England the school there had a very simple approach to sick children. If you cough too much – you go home. If you are sick – you go home. Look a bit pale? you go home. It was an almost knee-jerk reaction in its speed the way in which the school would get in touch with you if your child exhibited the slightest indication that they were sick.

I’m told – after telling the head-teacher that these don’t exist anymore in England – that they do this because they understand the difficulties of working life for people with children. If your child is a bit unwell, or is sick, they take them to the sick bay and monitor them for an hour or so. If they perk up then off they go back to play/learn/whatever. If not then they will contact the parent (s).

This is another great tradition that I experienced in my lifetime that has sadly disappeared from the UK – too ‘risky’ these days I suppose, in our culture of blame. So I’m pleased that it still exists over here, in our new home.

My son is pleased as punch with his new school, which eases my mind. He’d been a bit sick the previous night and we were both worried that it was due to worry about his new, somewhat ‘alien’, learning environment. This is clearly not the case though, as he happily runs from empty class to empty class, admiring the old traditions that sit alongside newer technologies – touch-sensitive whiteboards for example.

We reach the cafeteria as our tour comes to an end and, the headteacher informs us, he will be able to dine with his sister as the nursery and the school eat together. This pleases my two children no end, ‘We will have dinner together’ they happily shout.

We head off back to the mother-in-law’s for dinner, walking down the high street, which is beautiful despite the miserable weather. As we do we pass by the local florists. ‘Look daddy!’ my son says, pointing to a bunch of flowers. ‘Oh yes, they are very pretty’ I say to him. ‘No look, there’s a bee!’. He’s quite right, there is, crawling happily over the…whatever it is (I’m not a horticulturalist, OK?). ‘It’s escaped from the school’ I tell him, and he looks back at me with huge eyes. ‘Bad bee!’ he says, ‘We’ve got to get it back!’ ‘We’ll tell the headmaster next week’ I tell him ‘He’ll send out the bee-police’.

This seems to satisfy him and we head off down the high street hand-in-hand, all four of us, looking forward to the future.

An Idiot’s Guide To Running A Welly-Wanging Stall…

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children, funny, games, Humor, kids, outdoors, Parenting, school, stay-at-home Dad

 

 

I watch in horror as the heavy piece of rubber hurtles skyward, completely off course and heading straight for a family of four. There’s a mum, a dad  a toddler and a baby in a pram. Thankfully – and I use that term in the loosest possible sense – dad feels the full force of the welly. This gloriously sunny Sunday is not going well, I think to myself. And this is only the first 30 minutes. I’m manning the stall for three hours. Three hours. But surely that’s the worst thing that can happen on the welly-wanging stall isn’t it?

 

Nope.

 

I do a lot of volunteering in my village, partly to keep myself active, partly to feel part of the community and partly to keep my CV looking relatively healthy (some people don’t see ‘stay-at-home-dad’ as a worthwhile usage of time – they think we sit around all day playing PS4, when in actual fact we spend all our time writing articles that overuse the word ‘partly’ for our world-famous blogs *cough cough*). One of the groups I help out with is the local PTA.

 

I helped them run a Minion-themed night a few weeks back. There were over a hundred kids. Then we put minions in the room. Then we gave the kids pop and sweets.

 

I’m still having nightmares about that one

 

Kind-heartedly – or foolishly, you decide – I offered to help them out again at the summer fair. A yearly event involving inflatable castles, face painting, tombolas and lots of confusing games. They all cost either 50p or £1. That’s generally the upper limit for a school gala. Anything costing more than that is frowned upon.

 

I’m asked to man the ‘welly-wanging’ stall, and nod my head in agreement. ‘That’ll be a doddle’ I think to myself. ‘After all they do it every year’.

 

‘We’ve never done this before’ says the head of the PTA to me, on the aforementioned gloriously sunny Sunday, as he ambles past. ‘Good luck’. I set up my stall and mark out the ‘target area’, thinking as I do that it’s rather close – some might say dangerously so – to the football stall next to it. After I’ve marked out the target zone I set out my wellies, or wellington boots, there’s three different sizes, for the three different age-ranges we have. So small ones for the 3-7 year-old bracket, medium for the 7-11-year-old bracket, and really heavy ones for the ‘adult’ bracket.

 

I then look at the prizes. The youngsters get a toy tractor, the middle kids get a box of chocolates, and the 11 and over category get a bottle of wine. I point out that this means in theory we can have a 12-year-old walking away from a school fair with the top prize of alcohol in their hands.

 

The PTA hastily agrees that we should ‘Contact the parent of the winning thrower, and make sure they accept it’.

 

Before I continue I should probably give you some information about the wild and crazy world of wellies, and indeed welly wanging.

 

Here’s a welly:

 

Want to know what welly-wanging actually is? Here’s some info from Wikipedia:

 

Welly wanging is a sport that originated in Britain in Upperthong, Holmfirth. Competitors are required to hurl a Wellington boot as far as possible within boundary lines, from a standing or running start. A variation requires participants to launch the welly from the end of their foot as if they were kicking off a pair of shoes. The high level of competition has led to precise, highly regulated rules for the sport. The sport is regulated and administered by the World Welly Wanging Association, based in Upperthong

 

They must have been really, really bored one day to have come up with this ‘sport’.

 

I open for business at 1pm prompt and, at first, think I’m in for a quiet day. People stroll up, look at me, look at my wellies, smile somewhat pityingly and then carry on to the hook-a-duck stall instead.

 

But things soon pick up. I’ve got an assistant you see, a ten-year=old lad from the school who loves drumming up business. ‘COME AND WANG A WELLY’  he shouts. And when that doesn’t work he effectively encourages/bullies his school friends into having a go. We soon start cashing in, especially with our attractive price – 50p a go.

 

Things go wrong when the adults get involved.

 

The kids, in either category, are limited by their development. The adults have no such limitations. Some truly monstrous looking men begin having a go at hurling the wellies as far as they can, and any fears I had of a 12-year-old walking away with the wine are soon put to rest. No 12-year-old has a hope against some of these man mountains.

 

It’s one of these behemoths who hits the daddy and his family. But daddy’s ok, he laughs it off. But I’m worried, more for the kid in the pram than anything. ‘This wasn’t on the risk assessment’, I think to myself. ‘These people are too close to the stall, it’s a health and safety nightmare’.

 

The headmaster passes me by and stops for a chat. ‘Everything ok?’ he asks me. ‘Not really’ I say to him, ‘These people are too close to the stall, it’s a health and safety nightmare’. He nods his head, ‘Yeah, we should have covered that on the risk assessment’, then he ambles off.

 

The next victim is a young chap, he’s chilled out, enjoying the sun with his friends. This enjoyment soon ends when a size 10 welly smacks him straight in the face. We’re lucky though, he’s 13 and brushes it off, saving the bragging rights for later.

 

Another adult strolls up, he’s not muscly, but you can tell he’s got power. He’s just got that ‘coiled spring’ look about him. He takes a run up, winds his arm back ‘This one’s a winner’ I think to myself. Then the welly disappears. Backwards. He’s thrown it 20-feet behind him, nearly taking out the entire dance class that’s scheduled to perform within the next hour. ‘It can’t get worse than this can it’ I say, to no-one in particular, looking off into the middle distance, wondering if I could just walk off and leave my stall….

 

The worst thing then happens.

 

A mum and her three kids roll up at the stall, they look like they’re having fun, and they’ve clearly made the effort for the fancy dress competition. Mummy is dressed as one of the Pink ladies from Grease, son is Buzz Lightyear and daughter is generic Disney Princess. They look like they want to ‘have a wang’. So does the 11-year-old next to them. But he’s already paid so he has first dibs. He takes a run up and, WANG!

 

The welly doesn’t even get over the starting line. No, it promptly takes a 90-degree left-turn straight into little miss generic Disney Princess’ face. The tears are immediate and the cries are loud. Mum looks at me, I apologise profusely. ‘It’s alright’ she says to me, ‘I think she’s just a bit tired’. I look at the little girl, who now has the imprint of a size 8 wellington boot on her face and think to myself ‘Yes, it’s definitely fatigue, not concussion’.

 

It’s late, I’ve had enough and so I pack up the stall and head off towards the exit, pausing as I do to drop the money off with one of the PTA ladies. ‘Same time next year?’ she says to me jovially. ‘Next year’ I say to her ‘I’m doing the hook-a-duck stall’.

 

From The Mouths Of Babes. No 1.

Tags

gym, Humor, kids, Parenting, school

My son: ‘Am I taking my pee bag to school with me today daddy?’

Me: ‘Eh?’

My son: ‘My Pee bag’

Me: ‘Oh…you mean your P.E* bag?’

My son: ‘Yes, my pee bag’

Bless his heart.

*P.E stands for physical education classes in the UK, the equivalent of gym class in the US. I think.

WELCOME TO HELL

Tags

children, education, Humor, kids, melt down, Parenting, school

You trudge slowly towards your destination, in a throng of people all going the same way.

It’s like a grim, almost funereal procession, as though you are all heading to the worst festival on the planet.

Glum faces are everywhere.

Then you reach your goal, and force you way inside, wishing your pram had spikes on the wheels, like in the good old days of Boadicea.

You fight through the crowd of people, desperately searching for that familiar name tag, that particular hook, so you can divest your child of his clothes, hang them up and get the hell out of here.

Random people are everywhere, who knows what they are doing. There’s a lady with crutches, but no kids.

A bald man in a nice suit says hello, and then hurries past. Who is he?

You find the peg you are after.

You hang up the clothes.

Where are his pumps? WHERE ARE HIS PUMPS??????

He can’t wear his shoes inside. He has to switch them over to plain black pumps.

Logic tells you that they should be under his coat, like everybody else’s.

Logic’s not in today though, he’s gone on holiday and taken Patience and Calm with him. It’s ok though, Stress is minding the shop.

You see his pumps. They are on the opposite side of the room. Of course they are, why wouldn’t they be?

You hurry over, shoving your pram out in front of you, defensively, cutting a swathe through the crowd, as the first tell-tale trickle of panic-sweat slowly dribbles down your back.

You sit your son down, put on his pumps and make to leave.

He starts crying.

You collar a teacher and gently nudge your son towards her, she takes him in her arms and makes cooing noises. ‘The sooner I’m gone, the sooner he’ll be OK’ you say to the teacher, as though in justification for this desertion.

You get out of there, heart-rate subsiding, and breathe in the cool, fresh air.

This is the school run in the morning – welcome to hell.

The worst part?

In just seven short hours, you have to go back…