James Proclaims!

As I write this, I am sitting in the car waiting for Little Proclaims to finish her Saturday morning ‘French School’ session. Mini Proclaims is in the back seat, still wearing her bunny ears and maintaining a relatively cheerful demeanour given that she is strapped into a car seat and has nothing much to do.

Little Proclaims has a busy Saturday morning most weeks. We start with a relatively early swimming lesson in a local leisure centre. The centre in question has recently been rebuilt, so although the name has not changed, where once there was a dated and somewhat shabby facility there now stands a state-of-the-art complex. The new centre has been open for a year or so in terms of the gym and various halls for stuff like badminton and my daughters and I have been availing ourselves of the Soft Play there for quite a lot of the past 12 months.

However, the new swimming pool was not completed on time so, until today, the swimming lessons have taken place in the old pool, which was the only part of the former centre that was still standing. It always seemed to be a perfectly adequate facility and neither I, nor my eldest daughter, had any complaints. This week, though, the new pool opened to much fanfare and this morning, we were finally able access the new pool for swimming lessons.

It is quite an improvement. Indeed, it is spectacular. It feels slightly ridiculous that five-year-old children are permitted to learn to swim there. It seems like it should exclusively be in use for the training of future Olympians, 24 hours a day. Of course, Little Proclaims might well be a future Olympian. It’s far too early to rule that out. She’s not a bad swimmer for a nearly-six-year-old. I haven’t yet seen the potential for a gold medal, but what do I know? Perhaps access to this new and improved swimming centre will fast track both my children (for I intend Mini Proclaims to avail herself of lessons as soon as she meets the age requirements. Swimming lessons are available at extortionate rates elsewhere for children of her age, but she’ll have to wait another year before accessing this reasonably-priced aquatic nirvana) to international sporting success. It seems unlikely, if my genes have anything to do with it, but I am not a parent predisposed to installing glass ceilings. I lack the requisite skills if nothing else.

Mini Proclaims joins me for the swimming, which in the old pool necessitated a hazardous poolside experience. Two-year-olds do not like to sit still but should really be made to sit still when there is deep water nearby. This had generally resulted in a 30-minute wrestling match between Mini Proclaims and I, in which, despite my being a fairly large fully grown adult, I did not always emerge victorious. The new pool allows us to escape to a viewing gallery, which means I can let my youngest daughter wander freely without worrying about her safety. Today was, therefore, the first time that she decided to voluntarily sit still.

Well, she mainly sat still.

She did, once or twice, descend from her seat to bang on the glass of the viewing gallery and bellow her sister’s name like some kind of overzealous superfan. Little Proclaims responded with a friendly and dignified wave, which tells me she’ll be able to handle the trappings of fame should the Olympic dream be realised.

This post is turning out to be surprisingly topical. I’m writing it in the middle of June, when the Olympics are still some way off, but having just checked my ‘posting schedule’ I realise that the Paris games will be well under way by the time this post is live.

After swimming, most weeks we then head off to ‘French school’, which is not really a school but is a weekly class in which Little Proclaims gets to practice her French with other children who speak French (we have now admittedly dropped the sporting theme of this post, but Paris is, of course, the capital of France, so we’re still sticking with the Olympic theme in a way). I have no idea if French School has improved Little Proclaims’ French, but it has at least kept it relevant for her since she spends most of her week speaking English in her actual school and there’s possibly only so much our (arguably cruel) regime of only letting her watch cartoons in French will achieve, without a regular opportunity to use her skills. In any case it seems to be working, because she switches between the two languages fairly effortlessly, which is a talent that will come in handy when she is an international sporting superstar.

French school is not in the town we live, so, despite the lesson taking place for 90 minutes, I cannot return home and have to stay in said town with Mini Proclaims. There isn’t a huge amount to do, so we normally head off to a local supermarket and stock up on supplies to get us through the rest of the weekend. Weekend food shopping tends to consist of buying treats rather than the sensible fayre that sees us through the working week. Treats are almost always better from discount supermarkets. I don’t know why this should be, but Lidl and Aldi are really good at the stuff that is bad for you and the prices make it all seem so justifiable. Until later on, when the weighing scale reminds you that there is a different cost associated with high calorie snacks.

Food shopping (even naughty food shopping) can only last so long, so there is an inevitable part of every Saturday morning when I find myself sat in a carpark. Mini Proclaims rarely requires much entertainment by this stage, having generally exhausted herself by being a pain in the neck throughout all of the preceding activities, so this week, (which as previously mentioned is not ‘this week’ at all) I have decided to write a blog post.

It is this blog post.

It may not be a gold standard post, but it is at least a contender for bronze, when one considers the usual output on these pages.