Elements, Empire and Excellence

It is still bitterly cold - down to minus 6º C last night - but we are hanging in there with the heaters. I did skip Zoom band last night because the thought of trying to warm up our freezing cold dining room (the only suitable place to play) was just too much! We have also managed to hang in with our daily walks, well wrapped up against the elements. Today felt particularly cold, but it was bright and there was a gorgeous sky. I am also beginning to spot a few snowdrops and crocuses flowering, as a sign that spring really is just around the corner even if it doesn't feel that way during this cold spell.

I am enjoying having a relatively free week - no work yesterday or today, though a small job came in which I may work on tomorrow, or could leave until next week. I have been getting stuck in to some research and writing, though it has involved some digging around on Ancestry which has left me with a number of unanswered, and possibly unanswerable, questions. I am reading Heaven's Command by Jan Morris, the first of her trilogy about the British Empire. I was a little doubtful about it before I started reading, as views of Britain's imperial past have (rightly) changed a great deal in the 50 years or so since it was written. I needn't have worried. She is quite explicit that she writes from the perspective of a subject (and former soldier) of the last days of Empire, looking back over a vanished past, and it is easy enough to take the book on its own terms, knowing that it is just one side of the story. As ever, she is a master storyteller, and a quarter of the way through the book I have already learned just how much I didn't know - the attempts by the Royal Navy to stamp out the slave trade, the Great Trek of the Afrikaners in South Africa, the Thugs in India, the Canadian frontier, the doomed retreat from Kabul in 1842. I am knitting while I read, and have almost finished the back of a cotton cricket/tennis style jumper which I am hoping to knit quickly enough to be able to wear it in the spring.  

TG's mid-year school report arrived yesterday and, bless her, was literally perfect. They assess attitude to learning, behaviour, and effort/homework for each subject, and she was graded excellent for all three across the board. Her projected GCSE grades were all as good as or higher than her last report, and all 8s apart from a couple of 7s (all A / A* under the old grading system). She has never had a poor report, but this is the first time nothing has fallen below excellent. Given the difficulties this year and the fact she has been having to learn remotely, we are extremely proud of her for working so hard, particularly as she gets herself organised for school and does everything independently without having to be chivvied into getting up or getting work done. The school is organising virtual parents evenings by video link later this month - somehow I don't think any of her teachers are going to have any issues! I do recognise that her temperament makes school easy for her and it isn't a reflection of parenting skill on our part. She is by nature a pragmatic rule keeper so just gets on with things, and is bright enough that she rarely has to struggle to understand anything. I only wish I had been such a hard worker when I was at school!