Ladybeer

Today I collected my daughter from her Prader-Willi Syndrome Best Friend Forever’s house. She’d been away since Friday - PWSBFF’s dad had kindly offered to take her along with them to the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association family weekend in the New Forest. (I had been otherwise engaged doing Best Man/Woman duties at my brother’s wedding).

My girl and her friend were giggly and excited and sounded like they’d had a whale of a time (telling me, as usual, in particular, what and how much they’d eaten, and in my daughter’s case ‘what a silly question it was’ when the waitress wondered if she could cope with the hot chillies in her pasta arrabiata).

Their filling me in on events also required some filling in on my part. I worked out from a few little clues that she may have had a couple of ‘choosing issues’ on a little shopping expedition to a bookshop, for example. (She mentioned ‘absolutely having’ to go back again). 

It was at this point that the pair of them set back the progress of feminism a few years. PWSBFF said she wasn’t bothered about being late for Saturday’s visit to the country park, because ‘that was for boys, really. Going on a train ride at the park is for boys.’ This was swiftly followed by my girl announcing that she’d changed her mind about what alcoholic drink she’d like on her 18th birthday, and that it’s not now a spicy Bloody Mary, nor a glass of bubbly, but rather a ‘ladybeer’.

“What’s a ladybeer?” I ask, perplexed. “Beer is just beer - you don’t get different kinds for men and women.”

“You do, you know. A special beer for ladies, with lemonade in it.”

“Oh, do you mean a shandy?”

“Yes. A ladybeer.”

An image of suffragette Emily Davison - and the horse she stepped in front of - doing a Harry Hill look to camera and shaking their heads in disappointment popped into my mind. 

On the car journey home, in between singing along to a Taylor Swift CD, I explained to my daughter that girls and boys can do anything they want to. “I was Best Man/Woman at Uncle Ian’s wedding, wasn’t I?” I said. 

“Oh. Yes, you were.” She mulled this over for a minute. “I bet you drank lots of ladybeers.”

Song is David Bowie - Suffragette City

Scheming

We’re into the second week of the summer holidays. I’m still sane. 

My boy spent five mornings of the first week at the Baptist Church Holiday Club. He’s going to the Anglican Church Holiday Club later on in the holidays because I believe in a multi-faith society, particularly when it comes with cheap as chips childcare.

Meanwhile, my girl read. And then read some more. 

In fact, she’s completed the library’s Holiday Reading Scheme already, which a weight off my her mind, my mind, and everyone’s mind. After years of taking part in the scheme, - which requires children to read six books to get a certificate, but 18 if they want a medal - she’s finally stooped to the tactic of choosing really easy books. (When I’d previously suggested this to her, I’d got short shrift).

So she’s read ’em already, and got another medal for the collection (the one with the ribbon, pictured). This is despite her being over the age limit for the scheme now, and being encouraged by the ‘library lady’ each year to switch to the scheme for older teenagers.

My daughter politely declines. “I don’t want to do that, thank you. You don’t get anything.”

She’s still got her nose in a book, mind. She’s reading Harry Potter, in preparation for our upcoming visit to the Warner Bros. Studio tour. We’re going to watch the films again, too, although with some tricky pausing and forwarding. “I don’t want to see You Know Who, because I’ll have bad dreams,” she decrees. So we’re going to have to do a Harry Potter marathon minus the Voldemort bits. It’s given me an idea: if my little lad wants to watch the Godawful Star Wars prequels, I am only going to agree if I can apply a similar censoring technique, and cut out Jar Jar Binks.

Song is David Bowie - She's Got Medals