New job

There are four of them. Four almost excluded Year 11 pupils who have been given the opportunity to work on an almost one to one basis so that they can complete their GCSE courses. So far I have seen them once. They completed a past exam paper with grunts and groans and grumbles. This is their last chance but are they grateful for the opportunity? That remains to be seen. Their main concern was that they were not allowed to leave the site to go to the neighbouring supermarket for snacks; "We were told we could," they protested with unconvincing knowledge of the rules. Roll on Monday afternoon and the second session.

Friday morning was an appointment with my Italian tutor at a local coffee shop for conversation practice. The wife sniggers at this; as far as she's concerned this is me enjoying myself. Which in a way it is. What is the likelihood of being able to talk Italian in such a quintessentially rural English location? In fact my Italian lady is really French but was raised by Italian parents. At home they spoke Italian. She welcomes the chance to speak her mother tongue in this "backwater". By character she is urban but personal circumstances have conspired to insist that she lives in an ugly, badly constructed house in the middle of nowhere with an absent husband who spends his time travelling to foreign parts selling things. Her default mode of conversation is diatribe, in an entertaining hyperactive Latin manner. It's obviously good to talk for her as well.

This week we spoke of my new job and of the sad fates that befall so many young people in this country; excluded from school, drug use and early pregnancies, leading to a dependence on the state. Her cleaner was a case in point. A wonderful hardworking single mother whose daughter sleeps during the day so that she can work for a phone sex chat line by night thereby funding her drug habit. What's a mother to do?