gloom and fear

the bird table/sculpture thingey

dear readers, yet again i must grovel to you and apologise for my lack of contact. i have had the devil's own job persuading herself to get on the keyboard. the reason for this is that herself has been suffering from gloom. it has some fancy medical name like repression or something but the bottom line is just plain gloom.

things were ok, or at least not too disastrous, until the peeps were summoned to a meeting at my boy's school. my boy, as regular readers will recall, has been suffering with fear. this has meant he has not found it all that easy to go out of the house. since going to school involves not just going out of the house but going in a car for 20 minutes, followed by a taxi for an hour, my boy has not been going to school. the peeps have been trying to do educational stuff at home. herself has set up a blog for my boy to write what he has learned. alas, he will not share it with the wider world or i would give you a link. the peeps have borrowed a laptop for him to work on so he is not in his room. this avoids him being tempted to play with his gun collection when he should be writing about how to make bread. herself has spent hours on the internet finding things that might tempt my boy's interest. however, none of this counts as school. not going to school is something of a problem and the school called in a person called an ee-wo. hence the meeting.

the peeps were dreading the meeting. the ee-wo's main function seems to be taking parents to court. if the peeps were taken to court it would be bad for both of them. because of where we live it would be the court where herself appears as a lawyer. himself works in a school and is clerk to the governors, among other things. so neither of them would exactly get a promotion if they were taken to court.

the ee-wo was scary. as soon as the peeps sat down she fixed them with a steely stare. but worse was to come. the assistant head waded in.

"does he know that his parents will be taken to court if he refuses to come to school?"

the peeps assured her that he did. herself tried to explain that they were treading a fine line at home between my boy's fragile nervous state and the need to make the education authority's figures look good. therefore, while they would like to get him to school, they were not willing to do it at the expense of my boy's mental health. further, my boy is now 5 foot 10 inches tall. he soars over both peeps. himself is recovering from abdominal surgery. so the old practice of picking my boy up under one arm no longer works. there is also the question of human rights. my boy seems to have human rights and herself explained that to force him to go out of the house against his will, particularly if this involved what is legally an assault, would almost certainly contravene his human rights. herself is nothing if not the lawyer.

"well, putting it bluntly, he has a choice. he can either come to school here or he will be removed from the roll and he will have to go to a school nearer to where you live." the assistant head is someone who has been very kind to my boy so this approach rather shocked the peeps. but statistics and figures and budgets wait for no man, or indeed boy.

the peeps went on to explain that herself has been trying to get help for my boy from the the clinic for sad, fearful and deranged young people for 2 months. she has been phoning at least once a week, sometimes more. so far no help has materialised. herself explained that the peeps were doing everything they could, and a lot more than most families would, but that they were only human. at this point she started to weep.

the meeting ended with an agreement that my boy could stay on their books for the time being and do work at home. this would allow him to be marked as there in spirit if not in body, some sort of psychic miracle invented by an accountant. if only the accountants could stretch to funding a teleporter we would be home and dry.

yesterday, after endless chasing by herself and a number of other people, the clinic for sad, fearful and deranged young people sent a letter with an appointment. it is at the hospital, which is some 5 miles away by car. this week is the first time my boy has been in a car in a month. by way of increasing in tiny baby steps he has managed to travel by car up the road to where we go for a walk without feeling sick. but suddenly trying to go 5 miles will not work.

herself wrote an e-mail to the clinic for sad, fearful and deranged young people, explaining that the reason for the appointment was my boy's fear. if he had been able to get to the clinic, quite a bit of the problem would already have gone. she said it was surprising that this fact had not found its way onto my boy's medical notes, given she has phoned so often and has explained the problem every single time.

so we are back to square one. until a report has been written by the clinic for sad, fearful and deranged young people, no help is available, and if my boy doesn't do the work set by the school the peeps face being dragged off to court.

as inspector gadget is fond of saying, you couldn't make it up...