There is a light that never goes out

Weekends are always packed in our family with my zumba class, the boys going to rhymetime and football and all of us going swimming. Fitting in anything extra requires logistics that would make the MOD proud. We did, however, manage to find a space in the schedule to attend an open day for a school this weekend. My boy loved everything about it and yelled like a banshee when we moved him from one fun filled room to another as he realised that all of it was geared toward keeping him occupied.

A bit of tutoring with Daddy

As neither Hubbie nor I went to an independent school it was a whole new experience and refreshing to meet teachers who can spell, use grammar and don't dress like I did in my second year at university. I'm not sure why we received a free teddy bear and a big helium filled balloon to take away with us, but I think that is designed to distract from the sting of the fees they charge. I did find myself picturing my son in a school with small class sizes, a swimming pool onsite and an interactive whiteboard in every classroom - including the nursery ones. 

Of course the point of an open day is to show the school in the best possible light and to sell it to potential parents. The main concern I have is whether considering a fee paying school for our son is a sign that we have entirely lost touch with our idealistic notions and rewritten our own history. From being an activist about everything at university to waking up one day middle aged is a salutary lesson.

However, I do console myself that at least I recognise that I'm not a fearless upstart any more. Imagine living with the massive denial that the former frontman of the Smiths labours under. Morrissey has never been a bundle of laughs. Witness the cheerless titles the Queen is Dead, Girlfriend in a Coma and Meat is Murder, as opposed to Vicar in a Tutu and Shoplifters of the World Unite which I thought demonstrated how the Smiths were funny and their lyrics amusing, but now I'm not so sure.

Hand on glove and plant in back pocket

There was a time when Morrissey was the angry young man and poster child for sullen and disaffected youth with his precocious commentary on modern life and all it's failings. Now he's an older man he still deigns to make controversial pronouncements from his cosy ex-pat life in LA where he thinks his teenage rants are still relevant.

Out of loyalty we still listen to his rants, but he's less a national treasure and more a Victor Meldrew figure with a cooler following (my father-in-law thinks One Foot in the Grave is hilarious, but he has no idea who the Smiths were). People of my generation still think Mozzer is like a cool uncle who used to take us to festivals and is now vaguely embarrassing, but we're still loyal to him out of respect for what he once was to us. Anti-establishment and so very clever.

I'm not saying I'm going to get rid of my weird and wonderful music, or give my tour t shirts to charity as a sign that I've grown up. After all I've still got my original Doc Marten boots to show my son when he thinks he's the first teenager to be rebellious and/or misunderstood. 

What I am saying is that when it's his turn he's going to have to go some to find a style of music and a political viewpoint that we find completely disagreeable. If he wanders into the house with a long floppy fringe and a canvas bag with Nine inch Nails written on it in felt tip I will smile knowingly to myself - I just won't let on to him. 

You have nothing to fear… except the things you're frightened of

I was scrolling through the BBC website and saw this article about China's Ghost projects  which include a theme park that was built and is now used to grow crops, a 'British Town' that is only used for wedding photo shoots and most disturbing (to me at least) a shopping mall with 1500 empty shops. This is the stuff of nightmares. Endless corridors of emptiness and the haunting echoes of masses of space with no purpose.

It disturbed me most because it made me feel very queasy and reminded me of my own irrational fear which I rarely share and am now making public. I have a phobia of empty swimming pools. When I posted this on Facebook a friend confessed to the same fear and suggested googling it. Then something odd happened. I have never felt the need to look into this fear before so I have no idea how common or otherwise it may be. I found out that it's not uncommon and that some sadist has put lots of images of empty swimming pools under the heading 'fear of empty swimming pools' which comes up about third in the search results.

A non-scary swimming pool

It's as though some wag is trying aversion therapy on the sly. I genuinely don't want to see images of swimming pools in a state of disrepair or with a small muddy puddle at the bottom of an otherwise drained space. I can't explain why it bothers me so much. I love swimming and an over-full pool bothers me far less. If there is a gap that suggests the pool is slightly under-full I do get a bit anxious. Again, I have no idea why.

I don't want my son to develop phobias so I try to get him to be braver than I ever was. I was a fearful child and it wasn't until I was an adult that I decided to face down some of those fears.

- When I visited my friend Fatima who was living in Toulouse we went a climbing wall as she had taken up climbing as a hobby. As I wrangled with footholds and handholds and negotiated belays and carabiners I didn't think about my fear of heights. From the top I had no choice, but to be ok about it, but I really did feel alright. It also meant that I was able to learn to ski as a fear of heights can be pretty debilitating otherwise.

- How I ended up sitting in a roller coaster at Chessington next to my friend Norm is anyone's guess, seeing as they are not my idea of a good time. As I tried to climb across him to get out he calmly explained that they go slower than I drive a car. Also the man who was eating his lunch sitting under it looked very relaxed about it so it probably wasn't going to kill us all. I can't say I'm an adrenaline junkie now, but at least I'm not completely terrified of them any more.

- It wasn't until my Mum reminded me that I had a toddler tantrum about getting back on a plane that I remembered my childhood fear of flying. I have Hubbie to thank for getting me past this by a) rationalising my fears for me and b) taking the mickey so mercilessly that I was distracted by laughter rather than waiting to plummet thousands of feet into the ocean.

- Another irrational one that my Mum reminded me about was automatic car washes. Apparently as a child I screamed my head off as my Dad drove the car through a car wash and had she not reminded me about it the memory would have remained buried where it belongs. Instead I used to invite people to sit and talk to me while the big rolling brushes threatened to crush us to death. Thankfully now Hubbie and my boy love to wash the car by hand, so I'm spared the trauma.

So, the biggies are dealt with. I'm pretty sure that a fear of empty swimming pools isn't going to have a detrimental effect on my life, but so long as I don't pass it on to my son I'm happy.