7 Quick Takes: 17th September

1. The Pope is here! He spent his first day in the UK in Scotland, where he met the Queen, drove through the streets of Edinburgh in his popemobile, and celebrated Mass in Glasgow. The Papal Visit site has live streaming video, and there is live blogging at the Catholic Herald, which is also putting the texts of his speeches and homilies online.

2. Am I going to see the Pope while he is here? Sadly, no. Unlike the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1982 where there were large scale, open air Masses with free access, this time the big Papal events are ticket only. There are two in England, a prayer vigil at Hyde Park in London, and the beatification Mass for Cardinal Newman at Cofton Park in Birmingham. Each parish has been allocated a certain number of tickets for one or both events. Our parish only got Birmingham tickets, despite being nearer to London, and it is compulsory to travel by coach as part of a parish group (unlike Hyde Park where people can travel independently). The coaches leave from a nearby town at 3.30am. I just can't do that - I simply wouldn't be able to function properly for the rest of the week - so I'm contenting myself with watching on TV.

3. One reason I love Cherub's school is that they are serious about giving the children many and varied learning opportunities. From this week's Reception class newsletter:

We have made a workshop area in the classroom and would be grateful for any off-cuts of wood to hammer into, hand drill or saw (under supervision - don't panic!), nuts and bolts, nails, polystyrene blocks, pipes, old tools and tape measures. We would also like items we could dismantle with screw drivers to find out how they work.

How many schools would let four and five year olds loose with hammers and saws, even closely supervised?

4. After her enthusiastic start poor Cherub has been off school with a nasty cold for the last two days. She was also very disappointed that she had to miss her second ballet class. She is still snuffly but says she feels much better and wants to go to school this afternoon. I hate having to take the school / no school decision when a child is borderline!

5. This week's archival snippet ... some fun stuff has been put online by Oxfordshire Record Office at The Dark Archivist. According to Wikipedia the Dark Archivist "takes the visitor around Oxfordshire through the ages, searching for sinister crimes which took place hundreds of years ago, looking for old remedies and reading up on crimes as they might have been written up by journalists today." Horse-dung in milk as a cure for a pain in the side, anyone?

6. As a couple of commenters queried the pronunciation of "pightle" last week, I checked ... yes, it does rhyme with "title".

7. Continuing the word theme, here are this week's additions to the Cherub-English dictionary:

Marmalade = Marmite (as in "Mummy's eating marmalade crisps". Marmite crisps* - yum; marmalade crisps - yuck!)

Paracetamol* = Receipt ("Par-receipt-a-mol". Get it? I'm not entirely sure whether she was confused or joking.)

* UK-US translations ... crisps = chips; paracetamol - acetaminophen

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