The unbearable heaviness of washing-up bowls

We were camping with my family last weekend when my sister suddenly held up  an old, red washing-up bowl.
" Remember this?" she said.
My brother grinned.
" The famous  washing-up bowl  How could I forget it.You remember, right?" he asked, turning to me,. 
I stared at the hard, round plastic bowl,  willing this obviously important shared childhood memory to emerge from the ever spreading mist of my forgotten moments..
" Of course you remember," said my sister, helping me " this bowl and the motorbike."
" Oh yes," I said,  trying to sound convincing, "the washing-up bowl and the motorbike..."
And suddenly I did remember it: a sunny day spent lounging on a camp site in the South of France many years ago. 

As was often the case, my mum was watching some fellow campers packing up.
 It was a complicated process with tent and sleeping bags and worldly possessions scattered all over the ground, waiting to be tightly rolled into tiny balls.
The luggage had to take up as little space as possible because these were not just your average, every day,  chuck-it-all in-the-boot-of-a-car campers.
These were cool, leather-jacketed, sun-glass-wearing, biker campers.

While we went to the swimming pool or played table-tennis, mum sat outside our tent. waiting.
She watched transfixed as the bikers reduced their week-long home to a few small bags

" What I want to know," she said, when I returned to fetch something we'd forgotten, 
" what I want to know, is how are they going to fit that washing-up bowl onto their bike."
She was pointing at a plain, red bowl, standing on the ground next to the tightly packed sleeping bags and the neatly rolled tent. 
It looked old-fashioned standing there- too solid, too unfoldable to be part of the bikers' modern, compact world.
I grabbed the table-tennis bats I had come to collect..
"They've probably got a special bag or something," I said, running off to join the others.
" See you at lunch?"
But when we returned, hot and hungry half an hour later, the bowl was still in the same place on the ground..
 "Perhaps they're keeping a special space underneath the rest of the luggage  just for the bowl," she said.
" Perhaps one of them is going to wear it instead of a helmet," suggested my brother, reaching for the bread and ham.
" Can we go to the beach this afternoon?" asked my sister, making a long, salami sandwich.
" Sure," said dad and turned to mum.
" Shall we take the lilo?"
" I don't think there's going to be room," said mum.
" What do you mean," said dad, confused, "It's tiny. It's not even blown-up yet."
Mum turned her eyes back to us.
" Why would you blow up a washing-up bowl?" she asked.
We all stared at her.
" Why would we take a washing-up bowl to the beach? asked dad.
But mum wasn't listening.
Her gaze had returned to our biker neighbours.
" Look," she said, " they're almost ready.  Everything is on the motorbike except for the washing-up bowl. Maybe one of them is going to carry it on their lap.
I watched doubtfully as the " biker-chick," now wearing leather trousers as well as her leather jacket, clicked her helmet into place and swung her leg over the bike behind her boyfriend.
" I think she's too cool for washing-up bowl holding mum," I said.
" Well what are they going to do then?" said mum disappointment and slight panic rising in her voice." Perhaps they've forgotten about it.  Maybe I should go and tell them." They'll miss it when they get to their next camp-site. How will they wash-up."
" Perhaps they don't need it anymore," I said.
" Of course they need it," said mum, " how will they wash-up without it?"
"Perhaps they're going out for dinner for the rest of their lives," I said.
Before mum could answer, the bike engine roared into life.
Glancing behind her, the biker-chic checked the empty space where their tent had been 
For a moment her eyes lingered on the lone, red bowl.
" She's seen it," sighed mum," thank goodness."
But instead of rescuing the bowl, she tapped her boyfriend on the shoulder and pulled down her visor.
He kicked away the stand and leaving a trail of dust and churned up grass, they roared, leather-clad into the  blue-skied, Southern French distance.

For a moment the silence echoed around us.
We sat in front of our heavy-framed, three-bedroomed tent eating our lunch. 
While next to us the dust settled on the lonely, unwanted red washing-up bowl, too solid and unbearably heavy to be part of a life full of adventure and freedom and motorbikes.
Putting down her baguette, mum stood up. 
" Well," she said, " if they don't want it, we might as well have it.  You can't have too many washing-up bowls."
And walking over, she picked it up and started filling it with our used cups.
And my sister has never stopped using it on their camping holidays since.

And between that French holida and now, we have all of us, travelled and had adventures. 
We have made new lives in new countries.
We have left behind unnecessary possessions and wandered the world.
But in the end, there has always been something comforting about coming home. Something reassuring about knowing that somewhere, on some forgotten campsite, there will always be a round, solid , unchanging, slightly too heavy washing-up bowl waiting to welcome us back.

.

How do you get to Sesame Street?

This weekend, driving to Dorset in our camper van, we listened to " Songs From The Street:Thirty Five Years of music from Sesame Street."

And even though  Ninesh and I are grey-haired parents and our van was full of pre-adult teenagers rather than the pre-schooler audience it's aimed at, we all of us, loved it.

Sesame Street was an integral part of my Saturday morning childhood. 
It was so incredibly ahead of its time in its inclusive, multi-cultural, bi-lingual, child-centred, " learning-should-be-fun," approach, that it's hard to believe it's 45 years old.
Who can forget the psychedelic, bodiless hand counting to 10,
.

the unfrightening, misunderstood, purple vampire The Count, who just wanted to be left alone to....count.

Or the straight-laced, long-faced Bert and the fun-loving, round-faced Ernie, who will  be forever " just good friends."








And who hasn't been as addicted to sugar as the Cookie Monster or felt as constantly unconfident and incongruous as enormous, yellow Big Bird?
And everyone can relate to the anxieties of " bundle -of-nerves," blue Grover.
Before you've even met them, the characters are your friends because somehow they represent a part of you.
Especially grumpy Oscar, the dustbin- dwelling Grouch.
My favourite song on the CD has to be Oscar singing Nasty Dan, the grouchiest song in the world, with Johnny Cash ( " Say isn't your name Johnny Trash?" )

However many times you hear it, however old you are, it will always make you laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H75eQX006jA

The truth is, deep down inside, I have always longed to be invited to live on Sesame Street.
Who wouldn't want to live somewhere so friendly and caring and vibrant and full of fun.
If you're bored or sad or lonely, all you have to do is step onto the Street and immediately you will bump into a friend or a letter or a number or someone famous who just happens to be walking by.
And they will always know exactly what to do or say, or more often sing, to make you feel better.
I bet " For Sale," signs don't stay outside houses on Sesame Street for very long!
And can you imagine the street parties.
Not only would your favourite puppet friends be there, but all the other guests would be famous pop stars or actors or politicians.
Because everyone who is anyone has been on Sesame Street. 
From Kofi Annan and David Beckham to Robert De Niro and Zac Efron.
From Paul Simon to Michael Jackson
If you haven't been seen or sung with the cast of Sesame Street, you haven't really made it to the big time.
That's why the CD is so good. 
Think of a famous singer or group from the last 40 years and they are probably on it: R.E.M, The Black Crowes, Johnny Cash, Billy Joel, Lena Horne, Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
And behind the glamour and the songs and the celebrity laughter, lies the passion of the characters'  creator: Jim Henson.
He wanted to make learning fun and funny for all children whatever their ability, colour or language.
And he did it. 
Sesame Street led a blazing path across children's television giving it a status it had never had before and a creativity it has rarely seen again.

On the radio the other day, I heard a someone explaining that when they were ill and suffering from amnesia, they had suffered from hallucinations.
In one of the hallucinations he had seen God.
Only God took the form of a white-robed Jim Henson.
" Well, " said the patient philosophically, " if God is like anyone, it's most likely to be Jim Henson isn't it?" 
And I think he's right.
That Jim Henson should die so early and so suddenly from something so seemingly inconsequential as a sore throat, seems cruel.
But if I imagine him anywhere, it is sitting in a playground eating cookies with the Cookie Monster, trying to cheer up Oscar the Grouch and counting stars with The Count while Big Bird and Mr Snuffleupagus lollop slowly by.

And as I sit here, chaotically planning the party for our less famous street this weekend, I can't help listening out for the postman.
Because you never know.
Today might be the day my invitation arrives, the one with the map telling me exactly 
"how to get to Sesame Street."

 .

Teenage soaring

Mia's tortoise, Gaudi, has just crawled into her schoolbag and peed all over her books. 

 

Spot the peeing tortoise

Symbolic, 16 year old Mia feels, of the fact that, although she still has a few GCSEs' scattered over the next few weeks, her uniform-wearing school days are pretty much over.
And her future is glittering just in front of her, an ocean of unknown possibilities.
It's strange because I remember that feeling so clearly.
The feeling that you are standing on the edge of your tomorrow. 
That your wait is over.
That life can, at last, begin.
As a parent, it's not easy watching your children grow up and begin to walk away from you.
With every ounce of your being you want to reel them back in.
You want to hold them close and keep them safe.
You want to pull the thorns from any roses they may come across.
You want to kick away  the rocks and stones that they might stumble over.
You want to catch their pain before their hearts are broken.
That's what you want to do.
But you can't.
Not anymore.
Instead you have to stand in the shadows and watch them blossom and drift away from you.
It's their Spring, with a  perpetual Summer just around the corner, and they are ready to throw away their soggy books and take the world by storm  
Whatever that world may be.
Because it doesn't feel quite like our world anymore.
The world always belongs to the young.
What's hard, is admitting to ourselves that that is no longer us.

" Awks," says Mia if she ever catches Ninesh and I holding hands.
" Embarrassing," says 14 year old Joss, if he ever sees us dancing.

And you want to shout out:
" You're wrong.  We're not awkward or embarrassing. We're cool."
But the truth is, we're not.
At least not to them.
And anyway, who uses the word "cool," these days?!
"Useful," would be a better word to describe us.
We are chauffeurs and food-providers.
We are  hair-appointment makers and bed-linen changers.
We are on-demand-no-questions-asked-listeners and tissue-providing comforters.
We are personal bankers and uncomplaining mobile phone bill payers.
(How else can they phone us in the middle of the night to ask for a lift home?).
These are the terms and conditions that we unwittingly signed up to when we became parents of teenagers.
It 's the price we pay for unconditional love.
And the truth is, it's worth it.
Worth watching them spread their youth-tinged, unruffled wings.
Worth watching them take off and fly towards the stars.
Worth watching them soar far higher than we ever did.
And when they do, when we are merely specks on yesterdays horizon, it will still be worth it. 
They are the guardians of our hopes and the couriers of our dreams and, however old and un-cool we may be, they cannot help but carry a little part of us into their tomorrow.