The days are beginning to meld into each other and it’s only August, the beginning of my working year that will end next June. Such a long way off yet it’ll pass in a flash, I know it will, time is doing that, I’m getting older and it is speeding up. Thank god I’m sober or else there’s a good chance I’d miss it completely. That’s one of the unmistakable boons of not drinking. Yes, I’m here all the time, but also, I’m here. Experiencing it. Aware of its passing details, the thorns and hugs and crumble all of which happened yesterday when B came home from up north. It’s results day. This morning, all over the UK, this year’s A level students will find out what their last two year’s were about. They will be lettered. Scored. Told what their academic worth will get them. No surprise the system makes me furious. Relentless Guardian articles and Radio 4 interviews dedicated to the declining mental health of our nation while simultaneously continuing to send our children into a factory that spills them out fourteen years later through doors marked Pass and Fail. And we wonder why they’re crying. Even the A star students. Especially the A star students who discover pretty quickly and to their horror that life isn’t like that. At least the C grade, or fails are disabused of the school illusion early on. F*****g hell, it makes me mad.
So here we are today, and B will be handed their grades as will all their friends and there will be phone calls and congratulations and tears and scrabbling at UCAS and plans changing and frying pans bought for student digs. There will be student life beginning for some and year offs beginning for others and the whole lot will look back at school and wonder what the f**k was the point of all that. If we get on to the further degrading uselessness of GCSEs we’ll be here all day. So I’ll move on.
I was LIVE with novelist, poet, and founder of ALLi, Orna Ross yesterday who began our conversation by saying she wasn’t sure yet if Substack was her home. She’s a font of knowledge, a force for good and not only will our community be made richer by her presence, but our indie publishing questions will be answered, so let’s encourage her by subscribing to her publication and giving her three cheers when she shares links to her podcast, affiliated with the organisation which does such sterling work in progressing the cause of the independent author. There’s nothing she doesn’t know about going your own way, and ALLi continues to grow. You can catch the full interview here.
Then B came home and in-between I’d picked apples and blueberries and made crumble and we hugged and they told me stories of their week. They look so well. They said, sorry I haven’t been here, and I said, but my darling you’re living your life. This is what I want for you. It makes me happy. And it does. Isn’t that all we want for our kids? To see them stride off into their lives? J is doing the same, he’s in Wales galavanting at Green Man with friends. I’m so proud of both of them. Result.
Eleanor
