Musical Bedrooms
Just got home from a meeting about Beavers - the Scouting type, that is, not the animals. I didn’t do anything for Beavers last year, since Toby was so little, but this year I’m ready to go back - and it’s just as well, as our colony is down to one warranted leader. In the Spring, there was a parents’ meeting to see if anyone else was willing to volunteer, but while a few parents said “maybe”, none of them went any further. Tonight there was another meeting, to see if we could round up a few parent-helpers. A grand total of three parents showed up: two mums who agreed to help out once every four or five weeks, and one dad who made the usual excuses.
I get quite cross when people can’t be bothered. Every week, parents drop off their sons for an hour. Is it really so much to ask that those same parents stick around and help out for that hour, once every few weeks? There are only about 36 Beaver meetings a year - probably less - so if we had five parent-helpers, each of them would only be asked to do one hour, about seven times a year. And what on earth are they doing with that hour anyway? They can’t be getting that much done between leaving the kids off at 6.30 and collecting them at 7.30!
St John Ambulance also started back tonight - Freddy went to Badgers with George since there wasn’t a Beaver meeting (just the parents’ bit), and Barney went to Cadets and met another home-ed boy he knows there, which pleased him.
The rest of the day was spent moving beds and bedroom furniture around. George moved into the back bedroom a few weeks ago, claiming he wanted a room of his own because Jack was always messing up his room (which he’d been sharing with Freddy and sometimes Jack). As it turned out, once he moved into the back bedroom, it was the messiest of the lot - and after getting fed up with finding 600 pieces of Lego, 600 pieces of K’nex, 600 pieces of Monopoly/Scrabble/various other board games, and 600 Trivial Pursuit and Mindtrap cards all over the floor (yes, all at the same time!), I finally sent him packing back to the bigger bedroom with his brothers. There was talk of moving Barney into the back room and giving George the small bedroom, but I’d been putting it off: I hate moving furniture around, it makes you realise how dirty your house is 
As of last night, however, there was some urgency to the situation, because from Friday until Monday, we will have four extra people staying here - with the possibility that one of them will stay on for the next six months, if he is happy to do so.
If he does decide to stay, I’ll have a lot of admiration for him. It’s a huge thing for an 11-year-old to leave his family for six months, and when you remember that he doesn’t speak a great deal of English, and had never heard of us until just over a week ago - well, I’m not sure I could do it. It’s all been astonishingly fast - it’s only five days since we received their file, eight days since we first heard of them, and less than three weeks since we posted off our file.
Scratchy was expecting to be doing all the furniture-moving (including taking some beds apart and reassembling them in other rooms), and was quite astonished to find that the boys and I had done 99% of it by the time he got home today. I think I might have earned quite a few cups of tea there 
Anyone know how I can become fluent in French by Friday? Or where I can pick up a vehicle that seats eight for about, oh, about £500?
In: exchange, family, getting organised, life, social stuff
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What happens if you don’t like them? Are you stuck with saying to their face “i’m sorry, but i’m not comfortable with you leaving your son?”
Well, perhaps not in those words, but yes. But then we’d have been in the same position if it had taken months to arrange, y’know? I think it should be okay though - we’ve read one another’s (very detailed) applications, we’ve emailed and talked on the phone. My biggest concern right now - apart from that he might not stay - is that I’m the only family member who has ever been fluent in French, and that was twenty years ago, and that the boy’s English is very limited. I’m sure he’ll pick up English quickly, but the first few weeks might be difficult. Lots of patience required, I think.
You realise Fran would be old enough to do this next year? It’s mind-boggling, isn’t it?!
6 months???? Woah! That’s a big thing for an adult to do, let alone a child.
BTW, got tagged with a bf meme - I tagged you - sorry! Didn’t want to offend a friend and had to ask someone!
I think I would have loved the opportunity to go away for 6 months when I was 11, it seems more scary as an adult somehow.
I keep trying to reply to your car email and it keeps bouncing back to me, I’ve tried from all my accounts with no improvement! Anyway. Asked Steve and he said Caravelle or Ford Tourneo, both van/minibus types. But don’t go above 9 seats or you start running into problems with insurance. Neither of them are likely to be found for £500 though, well not ones you’d want, anyway! A bench seat for the 806 might well be the best short term option … I’m sure someone as savvy as you can source one online somewhere. If you want us to help let us know, Steve does have access to a part-finder service and we could try that for you if you draw a blank?