Darling Wifey & I bought our first house ten years ago this month, and one of my oldest friends helped me to fit a catflap when we moved in.

We had inadequate equipment for the job, and didn’t expect the back door to be quite as sturdy as it was (two inches of hardwood sandwiched between two sheets of quarter inch steel. Well, the house was built by a company based in Middlesbrough.) So it took us a full day to cut the hole in the door with a hand padsaw (no power tools in those austere times) and fit the catflap which, regretfully, ended up skewed by about five degrees.

Tilted catflaps do strange things to cats.

Anyway, the ongoing campaign to make our house Autism-proof involved fitting an LCD telly nice and high on a wall, out of the reach of Autistic inquisition. One expensive telly that cannot be damaged will, theoretically, be cheaper in the long run than replacing them every six months or so as Little Nutter conducts experiments with bowls of milky cereal.

So to Darling Wifey’s amusement, friend and I started to read the instructions and try to work out how to fix part A of the wall bracket to the wall, part B to the back of the telly, and then “simply” (whoever wrote the instructions should be sued under the Trade Descriptions Act) click the two together in a secure link. We started at 7, and we were ready to fix the telly to the wall by about 10… But we did a damn good job.

Finally, the “Grumpy Old Git” tantrum that I had at the beginning paid off. “I am not going to even start with the wall bracket until the telly has been set up first and we know that it works.” I even stamped my little feet.

When the telly had been on for a couple of hours, it developed a fault. It now turns itself off and on again every two seconds, and we can’t stop it.

Back to the shop…

Entish

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Shave.

Get dressed.

Buy a car. (Pealescent Nightfall is actually metallic lilac – with a hint of pink.)

Today I sold Darling Wifey’s Mini Cooper.

She adored Harry; when we bought him I had insisted that I had absolutely no say whatsoever in any choices, so he was every inch her car. The colour, the trim, the stereo, the suspension – even the slightly pervy gearknob. Everything was exactly as Darling Wifey wanted it. She even chose the number plate.

But from Christmas I will be working 40 miles away, and our other car is a huge 7-seat bus that laughs at any suggestion of fuel economy. And DW has been insisting for months that we needed something cheaper.

The new car gets three times the mileage out of the same amount of fuel, and cost half the trade-in value of the Mini (I left the dealership with a cheque for a a larger amount than the new car was worth!) So it is a sensible choice…

*******s to sensible choices. I’m a mean, miserly git.

So far, my guilt has stretched to a new leather sofa, an Apple laptop and a plasma telly. And a new coat. And I’m sure I’ll guilt up some more stuff before the year is out.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

(With apologies to, and in memory of, Professor Ted Wragg)

Level 1
Gets stroppy with people, constantly justifies objections to other people’s decisions.

Level 2
Pushes to front of queues, demands best seat in staffroom

Level 3
Refuses to contribute in planning meetings, does not co-operate in whole-school initiatives

Level 4
Uses loud voice in staffroom and parent conferences so no-one else can talk in peace

Level 5
Takes over crowd control in assemblies & events even when someone else is meant to be in charge

Level 6
Announces decisions loudly in staffroom, quietly makes others do all the work in implementing decisions

Level 7
Manoeuvres self into the best strategically positioned office in the building for visibility of who is talking to each other

Level 8
Openly intimidates others.

EP
Publicly dictates school and department policy to others

Go on – admit it! There’s someone who fits this description in every school you’ve ever known!

1. Making farting noises by pressing your stomach against her mum’s back and then sucking your gut in.

2. Making a “That’s OK mate, I forgive you!” gesture to the driver who cut you up at the roundabout.

3. Reading the Figleaves catalogue.

4. Spiking her mum’s Pimm’s with extra gin.

5. Dancing.

6. Chatting up her friends’ mums. (Come to think of it, don’t let her mum catch you doing this either.)

So, poor old Darling Wifey has lost her Mini. I should get my crappy little French Misermobile some time next week.

My only requirements were for obscenely avaricious fuel consumption and aircon. Yes yes, I know that turning on aircon naffs up your fuel consumption, but being mean doesn’t mean being cruel to your kids in a heatwave.

Meanwhile, a French supermini with a diseasel engine is a damn sight cheaper than a supercharged Mini, and with the sale of my old people-carrier as well we have managed to turn our “emergencies & contingencies” account into something capable of eradicating the last of the tasteless excess of our home’s previous owners. (In English: we have a makeover budget for the family room!)

We both want a new fireplace for the family room. Darling Wifey wants a leather sofa and a wooden floor to die for. I want a nice-ish floor and a plasma telly mounted on the wall above the fireplace. (Note well, Gentle Reader, that all our preferences are for wipe-clean, out-of-reach, Autism Friendly choices. Daft we are not.)

And we both want a weekend in one of those hotels with a spa and roomservice.

Well, I got the job on Monday.

It’s a high-pressure teaching environment, which isn’t to say that they normally aren’t but SEN teaching is more intense than the common-or-garden variety.

And the interview reflected that. It was important to the school that they reflected the pressure of the job in the process, and ensured that by the end of the day the candidates weren’t hiding behind their “interview persona.” Which is a shame, because my interview persona is a charismatic, witty and erudite alpha male – not a geeky, gawky scruff.

I digress; the day started at 8:30 with a tour of the school, and then a session in which we professionally observed another teacher with a class. After our own observations were scrutinised, we then had 30 minutes to prepare a 30 minute lesson which we then delivered to the same class, followed by scrutiny and analysis of the lesson. Then we had lunch with some of the kids (after we had been briefed that the scrutiny would continue throughout lunchtime) and then a round of interviews with several different panels.

So I’m not sure what job I accepted; I’ll find out, I suppose, when I get there and see whether they direct me to an office or a broom cupboard.

Meanwhile, after the interview I had 48 hours of migraines.

And Darling Wifey hates me. I’ve just sold her Mini and bought a nasty little French thing that does 85mpg. I can’t afford to drive 75 miles a day in a supercharged hot hatch.

After extensive investigation, we have tracked down the cause of Little N’s freak-out last week. He was given some blue Smarties by a well meaning moron. Sorry, that should say “friend.” A friend who has been told in no uncertain terms that if I had found out it was her last week, the door would have been inserted into her least well-lubricated orifice.

However, Little N had recovered from his little jolly by Saturday, and he walked into York with me for our weekly fruit & veg shopping trip. And all day on Saturday he was repeating words and phrases that he could hear.

Incredible!

On Saturday evening I took him to respite. I told him the name of his carer and said “Let’s go!” He responded by saying goodbye to Darling Wifey, his brother and his sister – by name! (I won’t mention that he did the same to his train set…) And he called out “Blue car! No Mini!” as we left the house (DAMN! The twenty mile round trip in Darling Wifey’s Cooper is one of the highlights of my week!)

At respite he threw rice around the kitchen, shouting “It’s snowing!” When he stripped and was told to get dressed, he replied, “No! Too hot!” The routine at respite was altered, so he had to wait a couple of hours before he could collect his train magazine, and he told his carer, “Stop that. I want my train pictures.” When I arrived to collect him this evening, he greeted me with “Hello Daddy,” and told his carer, “See you later!”

Right now he is watching Tom & Jerry, and when you say “Tom” to him he smiles back at you and, with full eye-contact, says “Tom miaow!“

The “Safe Indoor Fireworks Display” for assembly this morning was a great idea.

Twenty assorted kids participated in the display, throwing paint at a huge black canvas whilst making fireworks noises.

We thought it would be funny if the kids with the most severe motor-skills disabilities should throw the biggest painted sponges, rather than just flick paint off paintbrushes. (Re-write for morons of a Politically Correct persuasion: we differentiated the assembly by task and resource, providing materials and instructions tailored to the gross motor skills of individual students.)

So naturally I’m now covered in a variety of colours of poster paint; thankfully, none of it had got onto my new suede boots (mainly because I’d just spilled a bottle of PVA onto them, giving them a thick waterproof coating…)

Then there’s the assortment of stains that you pick up during a normal day in a special school (urine, drool, snot, gastric feeds, routine medications mixed with spit, orange juice, coffee and roughly-chewed play-do.)

And my Mother-in-Law thinks it’s a shame that I don’t wear a suit for work any more…