Old Hens and New Tricks

'We need you take us shopping,' said the girls. 'We'd go ourselves only you're the one with the credit card.'
'Unless WHSmiths has started bartering in eggs,' said Mrs Miggins.
'Not as far as I am aware,' I said. 'What are we shopping for?'
'Well,' said Mrs Slocombe, 'it's back to school week, isn't it?'
'And part of the excitement of going back to school is buying new stationery,' added Mrs Pumphrey. 'Like folders and pencils and cute notebooks with bunnies on the front.'

I thought back to when I was a school girl and yes, every September one of my quiet joys was to stock up on brand new bits and bobs for the new school year. It was always a shame that they had to be used, I thought. Especially for waste of time or boring subjects like Maths and German.

And then I thought back to the times I was teaching and the start of a new school year instilled less of a thrill and more a sense of impending doom. Well, not immediately because the first couple of days back were always staff development days and it was good to catch up with colleagues who looked happy and refreshed after the long summer. Hopes and ambitions were high for the new term because, of course, ALL the students who'd given us grief the previous year would have undergone a miraculous growth in maturity over the summer. But when they returned, they'd behave for about four days until they'd re-established the lay of the land and got their feet under (or more likely on top of) the table and then you'd find yourself counting the days until the October half term. And no amount of shiny new pencil cases and untouched by human hand erasers was going to lessen the horror.

'This may have escaped your notice,' I said, 'but you don't go and have never been to school.'

'Well, we're going this year,' said Miggins. 'We have enrolled in the Aristotle Plato Hencademy.'
'They teach the classics, you know,' said Mrs Pumphrey.
'You don't say,' I said.
'I do think you can't beat a classical education,' said Mrs Miggins. 'None of these new fangled diplomas and beak-techs for us.'
'It's BTEC,' I said.
'How do you spell that?' said Slocombe.
'B for bee, T for tea, E for Egg and C for cat,' I said.
'Shouldn't it be C for sea?' said Mrs Slocombe.
'Given the state of the National Literacy Strategy I wouldn't be surprised,' I said.

So I took the girls shopping in town. We made a morning of it, stopping for elevenses at our favourite olde-worlde tea shoppe. Mrs Miggins examined her purchases.
'Aren't new note books lovely,' she said, inhaling the heady scent of virgin paper.
I agreed they were.
'And what do you think of my new pencil case?' she asked. 'Not too pretentious?'
'No,' I said. 'I think a pencil case in the shape of Einstein's head with 'I AM A GENIUS' printed across his moustache is perfectly acceptable for a hen of your obvious academic calibre.'
'Thought so,' said Miggins, wiping a blob of hot chocolate and cream from her beak.