“Mrs. Pepperpot” and getting up to mischief

Last Thursday was the last day of school, before the Easter holiday, at the children’s school. In a previous post, I expressed my concern for “Boo” perhaps not behaving well enough for getting to do fun things that day. So, I felt like writing a little update on my “Mrs. Pepperpot” post. He did go off to school, sat down with the rest of his class to write down the weekly words. It’s not all the time that this works. Many times he has to go in to another room, with his assistant, and do the words with her instead. And that is not all they do! 🙂

He also did his reading well, with the returned-from-maternity-leave teacher. His assistant actually says, that many in the class room are rebelling against the change and not handling it well at all. But “Boo” surprisingly enough, is one of the ones handling it the best. It could be honeymoon behaviour, from his side, but here is hoping that it will at least work during the rest of this term.

Some children had started a fight with each other during recess and tried to drag “Boo” in to it, but he had done his best to stay away from them and when that did not work, he jumped over the fence and ran to the front of the school. The school yard is so tiny and now they have roped off an entire section, since they have planted grass there, which makes for a very small area for the children to play in. I can’t really blame him for jumping over the fence and fleeing, when the bullies attack him. What else can he really do? There is no place to hide! If he runs in to the building, then a teacher might stop him and force him out to the problem again or he can run in to new problems in the corridor, since all children seem to enjoy picking a fight with him. So, he chooses to jump the fence and run and sit on a bench, in front of the school. When you think about it, it’s quite a good tactic. He gets away from the problem quickly and is out of harm’s way. The only thing is, that it is not safe outside the school building, so you are forbidden to leave! After all the park houses the mental hospital and some of the patients walk freely in the park.

Since the fight was not his fault, he did get his reward. He and his assistant, watched “Mrs. Pepperpot” finally. Since I wrote about it, I did my reasearch and found that the books are no longer in print in Sweden. But, I could find some of them on the used market. There was actually a nice collection of three of the books in one, the first one called “Mrs. Pepperpot” from 1956, “More about Mrs. Pepperpot” from 1958 and “Mrs. Pepperpot’s Birthday” from 1960.  I sent for it but as of yet, I haven’t had time to start reading it to “Boo”. I hope he will love it as much as I did as a child. He for sure is smitten with the TV-version of it! Even though it is in black and white. Funny thing really. When driving to France, two years ago, my children got to see another old favourite of mine. It’s called “Private Bom”. It’s a cute film from 1948, in black and white of course. Private Bom is actually a stationmaster who is best friends with an old retired Major Killman. They love model trains and meet at Killman’s to drive them around on his model railway. The Major has a pretty niece that Fabian Bom is infatuated with and when he finds out that she loves men in uniform, he signs up for service. But he has OCD and is just very tiresome, so he drives the men and officers mad. But he is funny and has a heart of gold, so it’s a wonderful old film to watch. I hoped my children would see all the humour in the film, when I bought it, and they sure did. D. sat and laughed as much as the little ones, in the two back rows. Anyway, the children love to watch that film and “Mrs. Pepperpot” from the 1960s, and yesterday I finally got a question regarding the films: “Mamma, did Soldat Bom live a long time ago?” -Well, the film was made in 1948 but the man who played Fabian Bom is now dead. “But how was it to live when there was no colour?”. – No colour? “Everything is grey and black and white. Just like in Mrs. Pepperpot.” Classic question isn’t it? Our children think that the world was black and white when we grew up, because everything filmed then, was black and white. I tried to tell my children that I actually love these films more and likewise black and white photos, since one pays attention to detail better, in those forms. But of course it is sad, when one doesn’t see what colour a beautiful ball gown is in or what colour of hair people have, and so on. I was shocked, when I found out as an adult, that Ginger Rogers was a red-head. I always saw her as a platinum blonde! And when I saw one of her dresses, from an Astaire-Rogers film, in London, two years ago, and saw the price of it being thousands of dollars and all the work put in to it, well, then I must say that it felt like the money was wasted, since noone could really fully appreciate the dress, the way it deserved, without seeing it in colour.