Let’s do this together
The last time I saw The Dark Lord come home from school this chipper, they’d just announced the closure of all schools as the pandemic ravaged the country.
But this week, she practically skipped in the front door, saying: “I’ve had a GREAT day.”
I always ask how TDL’s day has been if I’m there when she comes back at precisely 3.03pm daily (she refuses to spend a second longer in the building than she has to).
Normally I get a grunt, or a moan about “some stupid loser boy” disrupting a lesson, or her lunch money app needs topping up.
The best review she ever gave was: “Yeah good – school’s run out maths exercise books so we don’t have to do any homework.” So to have a great day was a momentous occasion in my teenager’s cup-is-permanently-half-empty life.
She gabbled happily: “The lower school visited the upper school today but they’d run out of prefects so they asked me to help out with teaching maths to a class of Year 5s.”
TDL is halfway through Year 10 at her all-through school which takes them from tiny Reception babies then spits them out as lumbering 6ft Year 11s. And recently she’s discovered a talent for maths and sciences since she finally started paying attention instead of putting all her effort into faking my signature to get out of games.
“It turns out I’m quite good at trigonometry,” she told me recently.
“Is that something to do with the hippopotamus?” I asked.
“You mean the hypotenuse?” she corrected me. “Yes that’s what I said,” I replied, as she launched into a lecture about Pythagorean’s theorem.
“I feel much better knowing that if the world’s GPS suddenly disappears, you’ll always be able to navigate your way home,” I said.
This sudden talent for third century BC geometry meant TDL was asked to teach maths to a room of noisy nine-year-olds.
“I really enjoyed it, and I think that’s what I’m definitely going to be – a maths or science teacher.”
And buoyed by her success, she said: “I’m think I’m even going to apply to be a prefect next year.”
I looked at her battered burgundy tie and noticed she had scrawled out the logo and written “fascists” in tiny black letters.
“OK, good,” I said. “But don’t get your hopes up too much, eh?.”
■ Email siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.
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The real meaning of Easter is often lost under an avalanche of foil chocolate egg wrappers, but amateur artist Alex Dutton has captured a sense of hope in her portrait of Jesus Christ. The 63-year-old, who lives in Tutbury, Burton on Trent, Staffs, says, “I painted this especially for Easter for St Mary’s Church in my village. I used my imagination to recreate a moment in time that may reach out to people in times of uncertainty.”
■ Send your artwork to siobhan. mcnally@mirror.co.uk and don’t forget to send a selfie, age and your location