Article for 2013 Jan 06
Part of the “Cusp” series.
2013
2013 Jan
Jan 06 Sun
Mum gets loads of Christmas cards: I’d even say she gets more than I give, annually.
So people could see the many Christmas cards my mum has amassed, we had strategically positioned candles in strategic positions about them. Sister 2 only noticed the smallest of the candles today, and she started waxing lyrical about it. She even wrote a song about it, which she has kindly let me publish here:
Actually, as with pretty much everything on Duncan’s Childhood Blog, I wrote the song.
“Candela A Cappella”, by Sister 2 The Sailor.
On our mantle-piece / dwells a candle-piece, / not the amplest we’ve / there placed.
Though it’s less in size / than those Welsh mince pies, / nonetheless it lights / a place.
It’s a fragile thing / made of wax-fried string, / but it can find in/ner glow.
It shines bright upon / the delight someone / had been kind enough / to show.
I’m too quick to praise / the wick’s wicked ways: / the clocks tick the days / off now.
For Epiph’ny’s come; / flames have lived too much; / candles swiftly must / be doused.
When Sister 2’s enthusiasm for extolling the candle had burned out, she began to say how cute kiwis are, though I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to the bird, the fruit, the nationality of the New Zealander, or Nintendo games-consoles that are as important as door-openers. Mum called me precocious for that last option.
In fairness I always thought “precocious” was a compliment, meaning mature for one’s age instead of pretending to be. But Mum and Sister 2 are correct: it is fair to say that I was wrong in suggesting that there are any Wiis that are as important as a key. Sorry Nintendo, but it’s true.
It is also fair to say that I can be rather childish. Just witness my Charades interpretation of “the Sussex Carol”. Or me in a game of water polo. Yikes. I need to grow up.
But how to start? I guess abandoning childhood frolics might help. I have already donated my teddy bear to a charity appeal to support orphaned greyhounds, but there’s a whole lot more to childhood than teddy bears.
What did I do when I was eleven that the new mature me might not do? I wrote for my blog, but that started when I was ten, not eleven, so that’s ring-fenced. I’m not ditching that. I need to keep some part of me into the future, including this blog.
I took swimming lessons when I was eleven. Those can go. Never really enjoyed water polo anyway.
I studied Latin when I was eleven. Yes. Like the candle on the mantle-piece, my Latin studies illuminated pleasure: the pleasure of the exploration of orthography and pronunciation, accidence and syntax, conjugation and declension. And like the candle-piece, the time will come, if not today but when I’ve finished that important A-level in it, to say “vale” (or goodbye, even) to the little light of my life.
Hence my resolution to study Chemistry at university. There’s money, jobs, a life in Chemistry. None in a dead language.
So goodbye Latin. Hello a more realistic reality.