Getting on with things.

It’s amazing how quickly you can get back into old routines. So there I was, up and running bright and early this morning. Along the bridle path to Uppermill, a quick run round the market - fish and fruit and veg - a new mop from the hardware shop and onto the bus back home in time for a quick shower and a latish breakfast.

Later in the day our daughter brought her smallest offspring round to show off her developing language skills. Quite impressive! She also showed off her assertiveness skills. Increased language brings with it an increased ability let people know what you do and don’t want people to do. Fascinating stuff!

When our daughter picked us up from the airport on Tuesday evening she brought along my great niece, my English sister’s granddaughter, now a very together young lady of almost twenty. She’s in a bit of limbo at the moment however. I think her plans were to get her A Levels and go off to university, where her boyfriend was already studying. But like many young people who have done well up to GCSE, in the controlled environment of the secondary school they attended from age 11 to 18, in her case an all girls’ school, the reincarnation as a comprehensive of the girls’ grammar my Spanish sister and I attended, she did not adapt as well as expected to sixth for college.

At the comprehensive, then a specialist language college, she had done Russian and Spanish for GCSE. Unable to find anywhere offering A-Level Russian, she had resigned herself to studying Spanish and a couple of other subjects. After all, as I reassured her, if she wanted study Russian to a higher level at university, it should be quite possible with a decent grade at A-Level Spanish.

And that’s where the problem arose.

Somehow the A-Level teacher of Spanish failed to maintain her student’s interest. Or rather, the failure on the teacher’s part to support all her students and not just the most able demotivated my great niece and she just fell further behind and came away with a mediocre grade. And a pile of resentment against the teacher. At least that’s her side of the story.

I don’t know the teacher of Spanish at the college concerned but I do know the principal and other people who work there. So I am in two minds about the whole thing. There’s a part of me that sees it as a very familiar story, one affected by the pressure on all schools and colleges to meet targets for the percentage high grade passes. Often students are nursed through GCSE and then find A-Level really hard.

And so, instead of going off the university, my great niece continues with her part time job at Sports Direct, aware that she can do better than that but not seeing any opportunities opening up.

And what is a youngster to do, when she has set her heart on one path and then needs to find a new one? We have suggested maybe seeking work as a foreign language assistant in Spain. She could hone her Spanish skills, maybe retake the A-Level and hen apply to university as a mature student. There are ways round the problem. Although Brexit will probably not help with that idea.

Which brings me on to other matters. It seems the Royal Academy puts on an exhibition and sale of works of art every year. This year a portrait of Nigel Farage was put up for sale - Mr Brexit on canvas - and there was not a single bid for it. Here’s a link to an article about it.

Really, though, why would anybody want to bid for such a picture? If you want something to throw darts at there are cheaper alternatives.