The achievement cup is overflowing

1. We have taken down the Christmas tree. I say we. It was mostly me. Dig helped shove it into the box. It struggled, and finally entered reluctantly, with a knee in the middle, much as a toddler into a car seat. Now I can abandon it in the downstairs toilet and forget about it forever. (Tree. Not toddler.)

I assumed the children would be mortified at the loss of Christmas Joy, so I have been putting the end off, even risking the wrath of the Christmas Spirits of Superstition with the date. And I bought lard-chocolate to hide in their sad, limp stockings!

The idea is, when the children sadly pack away their stockings from the delightful decorative window ledge where they have lain discarded for two weeks, there is the final surprise delight! Befana's present!* The one everyone forgot! A bar of Cadbury's dog chocolate! Yum.

Well, no-one could give a toss. Not about the tree or the stockings. They just scoffed the chocolate, so obviously I'm kicking myself. I could have had the ruddy lot down and packed away by Boxing day. (Memo for next year.)

2. I wrote our week's assignments. This is a home ed blog! It is true! I do home education! (There is another myth busted for 2012.) Actually, we are into that child age where effective parenting is to piss off and leave them alone. They cracked the reading several years ago, so job done, really.

But I am keeping the assignment blogs going (sounds good, eh?) partly because I would like Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to think about bringing structured study into their days. (Look at my saintly halo, Dig should be v. proud of me.) Also, some busybody from the local council might collar me and demand pompously to know my provision of education.

If you don't know about the blissful life of home ed, then I should tell you that someone from the council can ask, and they have a legal right to do so.

I have a legal right to tell them nothing, although it probably would be foolish to do so, but if I want I can tell them anything. Not stupid things, obviously! (Although I would be minded, if pushed.)

We can tell the local council what we do in any form, say a written folder with pictures or examples of what the kidlets have done. Then, if they are provided with information, they should push off and leave us alone.

Well, because I can't remember what I'm doing one minute to the next, my choice of information is online; it is a demonstration that an education is being offered. (Whether it's picked up or not is another matter.)

But I doubt anyone will ask. We're not even in England for a start. I don't know why I bother. Don't get me thinking.

3. The children are all quiet today, reading books about ice and fire. Shark has been on her fishy friend forum. She is sploshing over with information on tanks, filters, thermometers, and stuff. I don't know, I tune out after five minutes. Where did she inherit this fish love? One of her ancestors ran a fish and chip shop. Must be that.

4. I have found a half-bottle of gin. The Travelling Aunty is coming back to see us soon, and I am fixing up a hectic schedule for her of museums and outings and more treks into the wilderness. (I will tell her we are heading off to the last woman-eating Tiger outpost of Hong Kong to see if she believes me.)

I could keep going with the achievements, but in light of the gin element of number 4, I won't.

Planet Earth should send me a medal, or something.

*I now think we are the only family in the country to do this. Until last year I thought everyone did it. It was when I discovered no-one knew who Befana was, or what I was talking about, did I begin to suspect we were odd.