Fostering Education

A few years ago Barry fostered a cat while its owner was in prison. She had made no arrangements for its care and we ended up with one very scared kitty. We named him Foster for obvious reasons. Anyhow fast forward a few months and we moved house to our present abode and hit a snag. The previous owners had left their tom cat behind and between Foster and Shadow (the resident tom cat), World War III was declared. We went away for a weekend during this battle and when we got home Foster had left. Run away from home or been chased. Shadow was not saying anything, but he looked very smug for a while. We looked around the neighbourhood and checked to see that Foster hadn't been the victim of a hit and run. Fast forward to this year .... Our neighbours have recently sold their house and moved .... and would you know it but Foster suddenly appeared on our doorstep. We presume he had been residing with them, the now ex-neighbours ... and our prodigal cat didn't move with them but chose to return to WW III and Shadow. All good so far ... no huge battles have ensued but Foster has a nasty new habit. Peeing on anything and everything that isn't nailed down ... even though we do have a kitty litter tray set up for him. We cleared off the dining room table after a rather nasty peeing incident all over our table mats etc. But I had been working on a set of drawings for a client .... illustrations for a historical leaflet. And, yes, you guessed it .... he peed all over everything without me noticing. When I handed the drawings to the lady I saw they were 'damp' and apologised for what I thought was a water spill ... and no, it didn't smell too kitty ammonia-ish. But now I am considering phoning the client and apologising for the episode .... except that she recently told me to stop apologising for things. She said 'Stand up for yourself and if people don't like it they can lump it.' Does this advice apply to her? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Foster you have put me in a proper pickle. I will wait and see if she phones me ... not Foster, because we all know cats don't use phones, but rather my client. And then I will apologise on behalf of the prodigal kitty and .... well ... and nothing, we will just wait and see what happens then. Wish me luck.

We went to the city this week and dropped off some things at our daughter's house on the way. As we drove into her Cul-de-sac we noticed a young boy playing around. He should have been at school and I was tempted to yell out the window in my fish-wife voice ... 'Go to school.' but I was having a 'be nice to others' day and bit my tongue instead of calling out. But I do wonder what the future holds for this young man. With no one to encourage him to attend classes at age 8 or 9 will he ever become literate or able to find work ... or fill in an application in the future? Is he going to become a drain on society? I really wanted to sit down with that young child and tell them that life gets better if you can read and write ... even if your mother is an alcoholic or your dad is abusive. There is an escape. I worried about the child and later my husband told me that I cannot cure all the world's ills and that my contribution was to educate my own children so that they are now all educated functioning adults ... and maybe they can make a difference to children like the lost boy. Anyhow the next day my daughter phoned to say that her husband had glanced out the window and seen a child sitting in their tree house during the middle of the day .. school time. This time they knew who the child was and phoned the school to ask if he had an excuse for being out and about in the neighbourhood. The office assured our daughter that child X was in class .... no, he is not, he is in our tree house. How many other children fall through the school/education cracks and into someone's hypothetical tree house? Between us we saw two boys in two days wagging school .. not good. It's no use giving them corporal punishment. They most probably get plenty of that from their caregivers anyway. It's too easy to say it's the school's fault. But it's not. We need to take ownership of our own children .... yes, I heard you Barry, I cannot cure the ills of the world all on my own. It is now up to my children and grandchildren to be shining lights to those children in darkness and without hope. If we don't do anything then it will come back to bite us ... when those uneducated children turn to crime to survive and rob our homes or ourselves. No, I want to wave my magic wand and ensure that children are encouraged by loving parents to be the best of themselves that they can be. I wish to be like Miss Universe and have 'World peace' .... or my equivalent of it anyway. Happy children at peace with life and loving their environment. Oh well, I will never be Miss Universe or Mrs Multiverse or whatever and I don't own a magic wand. Shucks.

I have been cleaning up my illustrations for my latest book by using Photoshop. You enlarge the picture to a stage where almost every pixel is visible ... and then use the eraser to take out those fly speck marks that drop from the pen. I usually use another word for fly speck ... but my Gran would always said that only uneducated people use profanity ... and that if you have a good vocabulary you can insult someone much more effectively than just using a swear word. So fly speck it is. Using Photoshop is a bit like trying to kill a fly (the one who festoons things with specks) with a sledgehammer. It is great using Photoshop ... but you have to be really really careful that you don't destroy details that you have spent hours creating with a pen ...... and there is no coming back from a bad eraser swipe. If you notice it in time you can undo ... but if it's an hour later and you wonder why the tiny person no longer has an eye or a nose in your creation ... it's too late, start again from the very beginning. The interesting thing when you enlarge the picture is that you can see the ink bleeding into the surrounding paper. If the paper is too porous ... like blotting paper ..disastrous ... you are really just wasting your time. The balance is to find paper that is good enough not to bleed ink ... and cheap enough to throw away when your drawings are discarded. Good quality paper costs money ... and throwing drawings on expensive paper onto the fire is fine ... as long as you are rich as Creosus. And let's be frank, I am in no way as rich as Creosus ... or Trump ... or Kylie Jenner ... and I dislike throwing away paper at the best of times. I like my paper to have a little bit of 'tooth' a little bit of texture and lots and lots of quality ... as long as its in my price range.

Now all I have to do is educate Foster not to desecrate my drawings with his excrement ... see Gran, using big words ... I is almost edumacated proper and all. I am so happy that I have written a whole blog without one iota of apology .. my client would be so proud of me ... when she phones. Maybe? And now go out and create world peace on my behalf folks... or your little corner of paradise anyway. And I will do my best to encourage those in my corner of the world.