Week 213: Astonishing

October 2, 2022

When the big one started school I had to fill in a load of consent forms, and one was about photos. I said no to a bunch of uses, mainly where her picture might appear on the public internet. I’m not incredibly rigid about this kind of thing, but when they said “can your child be featured in the Brighton Argus’s new school starters spread” it was a clear “no” from me. This was basically because I understand vaguely how the Argus’s business model works and I didn’t want my kids face to be used to drive ad impressions. Of course it would be different if she wanted that, but she’s four so she can’t meaningfully consent. Anyway I figured I wouldn’t be the only parent who noped on this, but it turns out - I was! So poor little E had to go off to a different classroom while all her mates had their photo taken.
This week I watched Skandal! on Netflix with Lachie. It is really astonishing story but also really exciting to see the office and lots of people I know talking about something parts of which I remember happening.
At the weekend Lachie cycled some of the South Downs Way with his friend Sam and I looked after the kids at home. It was actually very easy because E was so helpful and is old enough now that I can leave her to look after her brother for a bit and she’ll do it. When she’s properly trying to look after him she does a sort of squeaky sing songy mummy voice and says things like “OK baby, what shall we play, would you like some options????”.
On Saturday we were in town when we heard shouting. E seemed interested so we went to investigate and it was a march associated with the rail strikes. E was very interested so I asked her if she wanted to join in, which she did! So we ended up walking with the other protesters for a bit. I would have liked to have taken a photo but I didn’t want to be too much of a tourist about it.