Guns and Swords: 2013 365 Challenge #226

My son trying to impale his sister with his wooden ‘gun’

My children have reached that stage I’ve been dreading as a parent: gun role play. They must have learned it at nursery because we don’t let them watch anything remotely violent on TV (we even fast forward through big chunks of movies like Lion King and Jungle Book. Time enough for violence when they’re over five).

I hate gun play. It makes me edgy. I know that it isn’t guns that kill people: people kill people. But it’s a lot easier to do it with guns than fists.

So today, when I discovered my son ‘gunning’ his sister with a three-foot flag pole and laughing every time he ‘got’ her, I suggested they play something else.

My attempt to change their focus ended up in a game of knights and swords – the children love Mike the Knight (on Cbeebies: I think he’s a selfish, whining brat). I thought that would be safer than running around with a three-foot stick, as the ‘swords’ were light plastic and they were wearing their knights’ helmets.

I was wrong.

Swords. Wasn’t much of an alternative!

Shooting siblings happens (mostly) at a distance, but you get up close and personal for sword play. Within seconds they’d whacked each other on the arms and both ran to me screaming.

I’ve suggested they make a den out of the climbing frame, and they’re cooperating for now, but I think some days they’re just out to hurt each other one way or another.

I feel like the kill joy. I feel like the meanie. I stopped a game on the chance that someone might get hurt (see the picture where my son’s trying to impale his sister on the pole) only to instigate a game where someone did get hurt.

I don’t know what to think about guns. We don’t live in a neighbourhood where gun crime is likely. Guns are used for shooting pheasants, and only hold two cartridges (although two would be plenty to hurt or kill someone). Not many swords around either, although I suppose there are knives. I don’t like to think about it. I want to keep my kids in the garden and protect them forever, though of course that isn’t possible.

What’s the answer? Suggestions welcome. Is gun play okay? Do I need to lighten up and buy them some Nerf guns instead? A sort of ‘if you can’t beat them, at least provide them with soft foam bullets’ sort of solution? Sometimes I wish I’d just had girls.

Son is happy because he ‘gunned’ his target

P.S. After I finished this post I looked for related articles and came across this great one: Keep Kids from Toy Guns – How one mother changed her mind. I have completely changed my view.

I love the thoroughness of this article – how it explores the necessity of role play and rough play for children (particularly boys) and the suggestion that depriving them might hinder their growth. It also explains that violent role play doesn’t mean the same to a child as it does to an adult.

A friend on Facebook suggested that forbidding gun play just makes guns taboo and exciting, meaning the children are more likely to seek them out. All great advice.

So I will try and ignore my son’s fixation with guns and just make sure he’s using something other than a three-foot flag pole!

P.P.S One of the schools we looked at for our daughter offered fencing lessons. I think that’s a great idea! Teach the right way of doing things. Might look out for a class if the school we’ve chosen doesn’t also offer it.

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Below is the next installment in my novel Two-Hundred Steps Home: written in daily posts since 1st January as part of my 2013 365 Challenge. Read about the challenge here.You can catch up by downloading the free ebook volumes on the right hand side of the blog:

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Claire followed the driver down to the beach, shivering in the evening breeze.

What am I doing in my swimsuit and a sarong at 6pm in autumn? Even if that is a New Zealand autumn and it’s probably as warm as a British summer.

The driver carried a bundle of spades and Claire hadn’t yet found the courage to ask what they were for.

When they reached the beach Claire felt like she’d arrived on the moon. The charcoal-grey sand was littered with dozens of craters, some tiny, some several metres across. Steam rose from the nearest ones and Claire could see scantily clad people lounging in the water as if they were at a spa.

“Okay, guys, grab a spade. Watch out, sometimes the water can get too hot, you know?”

Hot Water Beach

With that the driver dropped the spades and sauntered off. Claire hung back as her fellow travellers surged forwards. As she’d hoped, there were soon no spades left and she felt able to wander down to the shore.

Claire walked along the sand, splashing her feet in the lapping waves, and staring out at the horizon. Behind her she could hear shrieks and yells as people jumped into hot pools or shoved their friends in. She heard someone call out, “That one’s too hot,” followed by a confident denial, then a loud scream. Claire smiled.

The night air brushed at her skin, raising goosebumps and making her shiver. It was no good, if she didn’t get in the hot water soon she would freeze.

Claire turned and walked back up the beach, hoping to find a small pool that had been vacated because it was not required rather than because it was scalding hot. As she made her way through the pools, avoiding eye contact and ignoring the giggles, someone called out her name.

She turned and saw a dark shadow lying alone in a large pool. Visible only by the whites of his eyes and his shimmering teeth, Claire recognised her nemesis and cursed herself for responding to his summons.

“Come and join me, Claire?” Neal patted the sandbank next to him in invitation. “Water’s lovely.”

Claire hesitated, but shivered again as the sun dropped lower in the sky, taking its warming rays with it.

“Chicken?” Neal’s voice dripped with provocation.

Not wanting to give him an opportunity to goad her further, Claire took a step away from the edge and scanned around for another empty pool.

“Come on, don’t be shy. I don’t bite. Not unless you want me to.” His deep chuckle rolled through the dark, doing strange things to Claire’s insides.

Realising she was getting strange looks from the people in nearby pools, Claire tugged off her sarong and slipped into the water as far away from Neal as she could. She sat upright, but the contrast of hot and cold made her shudder, and she was forced to slide in deeper.

It was bliss. Claire realised she hadn’t had a bath in months. Hostels didn’t have baths and when she was staying with her sister there had never been the time for the luxury of deep hot water. Kinks and knots in her back and neck shifted under the heat and she squirmed to find a more comfortable position.

Claire felt a pressure on the ball of her foot and kicked out in panic. Her action led to another deep chuckle, and she realised Neal was massaging one of her feet, his thumbs digging deep in soothing circular movements.

She wanted to pull away, to protest, to get up and leave the beach, but somehow she couldn’t. Not wanting to think about anything other than the heavenly sensation, Claire laid her head against the sandbank behind her and closed her eyes.

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Keeping Kids From Toy Guns: How One Mother Changed Her Mind (theatlantic.com)
Local churches offering ‘Toy Gun Exchange Day’ throughout St. Louis area (kmov.com)
Kids and Swords (phoenixswords.wordpress.com)

Harvest: 2013 365 Challenge #225

Tractors on the road (wasn’t driving when took this!)

It’s harvest time here in the UK. I love the harvest. Despite the late nights, the noise, the dust, the traffic, the “mummy, a tractor, look!” a hundred times a day, it’s a wonderful time of year.

I followed a tractor and trailer home this afternoon, driving at 30mph. Normally travelling at that speed would have me cursing, dithering as to whether I should try and overtake, especially on a nursery day, when time is precious. But because it was a harvest tractor I sat back, listened to the radio, and enjoyed the rest. Every half a mile we pulled over to let another tractor through – our country lanes not being wide enough for two cars in places, never mind two tractors.

The drivers smile, even though they’ve probably had five hours’ sleep a night this week. They drive into the dark; their wide headlights lighting the hillside.

You can spot a combine harvester by the dust. Even though it’s a common sight, it still makes me smile. There’s something so essential, so powerful, about watching the beast of a machine sweeping up the fields, leaving bareness behind and disappearing in a cloud of dust like a camel running through the desert (not that I’ve ever seen a camel in the desert. That’s how I imagine it might look, anyway.)

Fields with a haircut

Soon the fields will be ploughed in; changing from wheat-yellow to dark brown. The dog will come home filthy and some paths will be impassable. It looks like a better harvest this year. Last year’s wheat, especially, was devastated by the floods. Farmers lost half their yield and the price of bread shot sky-high.

As the land is managed on a three-field crop rotation, we’ve had some set-aside and some oil seed rape in the local fields this year. Maybe next year it will be potatoes. My favourite crop is barley. As Sting famously sang, the fields come alive in the sunlight and wind, rippling like a bran-coloured ocean.

I can’t imagine living somewhere with no harvest. It marks the turning of the season like no other event. My step-father used to work on a farm and harvest time we never saw him. He would be driving until 2am and – in the days before mobile phones – my mum would go out armed with a field map and lunch box to take him his dinner.

It’s an energetic time. Activity everywhere. On the roads, in the fields, round the farms and the storage barns. Scurrying mammals bringing in the food before the winter. We’re all squirrels at heart.

Harvest means the end of summer, too. The end of the school holidays in sight. The year running away like sand in an hour glass. This year is particularly poignant as it’s the end of preschool life for us. Harvest reminds us that the seasons change, the year ebbs and flows, life goes on. Hopefully I’ll feel like that once school starts in September!

P.S. I used pictures from my NZ honeymoon to write today’s Claire installment so had to include them below. There might be other NZ pictures in Claire posts for the next few weeks! Any excuse. 🙂

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Claire leant her head against the window in what was becoming her preferred position. A night spent back in Auckland had restored her equilibrium after the sand-boarding experience, although she had bruises on her bruises, and muscles she didn’t previously know existed still burned.

Amazing views, Coromandel

Outside the window rolling, undulating, forest views sped past too fast as the driver negotiated hairpin bends and steep drops. Claire was glad she’d slept rather than followed the others out drinking the night before. She suspected it might have otherwise been hard to keep food in her tummy with the swaying of the bus and the changes of scenery from green to blue, dark to light, forest to sea.

They arrived at the hostel all too soon and Claire reluctantly left her window seat to go and check in. Some of the group were leaving immediately to kayak round to a place called Cathedral Cove.

Deciding her muscles had received enough of a pounding for a few days, Claire had opted out. Gazing now at the blue skies still smiling above, she wondered it if was too late to change her mind.

“Any folks wanting a lift round to the Cathedral Cove, I’ll be leaving in a while. Come and meet me back at the bus after you’ve checked in, and bring your walking shoes.”

Claire gave the driver a smile and he grinned back, flicking his eyelid in a flirtatious wink. It had been a huge relief to get on the bus that morning and discover a new driver would be taking them down the east coast. Whatever had sparked the previous driver’s antagonism towards her, she obviously hadn’t made the same mistake this time. If anything, this one was too charming though she wasn’t going to complain about that. Not yet, anyway.

The view from the car park made Claire stare in wonder. Even though she’d watched the views out the window all day, nothing had prepared her for the brilliance of seeing it without glass. At first glance it was only sea and trees; but the depth of the colours brought out by the afternoon sun made the whole panorama shimmer.

They followed the narrow footpath down towards the cove. Every turn, every few minutes’ walk, revealed a new view. The sea changed colour continuously, from navy blue to steel grey and back to aquamarine. Islands lay scattered across the bay like Russian dolls.

Gemstone Bay

A few minutes further and the scene changed again: this time, white cliffs could be seen between lime-green ferns. The water in the bay below shone turquoise, whilst further out to sea jet skis carved brilliant white crescents against the pthalo blue. Throaty engines echoed in the silence, but the roar of the machines couldn’t break her peace. Her heart sang.

Following sign posts, Claire took a detour to find gemstone bay. She came through the trees to discover a pebble-strewn beach lurking beneath a rocky bluff. The stones shimmered red and green in the water like the precious gems the bay was named for. Snapping some pictures, Claire returned up the path, groaning at the pain in her calf muscles.

Right. No more unnecessary detours.

Eventually they reached sea level. All along the beach, tourists stood with cameras ready, trying to capture the perfect image. The cathedral itself was a hole in the rock, like Durdle Door – on Claire’s list of things to visit in Dorset, before she’d decided to run away to the other side of the world.

Why do I keep comparing things to Dorset? As if anything that county has to offer can come close to the Coromandel scenery I’ve witnessed today.

Cathedral Cove, Coromandel

Claire waited by the natural stone archway, trying to take a photograph with no people in sight. It took too long and eventually she settled for figures in the distance. Sometimes trying to take shots she could use for the blog tried her patience.

Ahead she heard the sound of laughing and splashing and she strolled through the tunnel to investigate. On the next beach, a group from her bus were paddling in the sea. One person had stripped off and was swimming out to a distant rock.

Claire kicked off her shoes and dipped an experimental toe in the water. It was freezing. She joined the others to discover who the crazy swimmer was. As he waved from the rock and dived back into the water, she watched his progress with a sinking certainty.

Neal. Of course, I might have known.

Not wanting him to catch her watching, Claire hurried back through the cathedral and made her way to the bus. Halfway up the walk, she paused to catch her breath. A strange impulse caught hold of her, like a shift in the weather. She took out her phone and tapped a text message, hitting send before she could change her mind.

Conor, it’s Claire. Just wanted to say hi and thanks for the text. I’ve just been to see a place that reminded me of Dorset. You’d love it. There will be pictures on the blog tomorrow. Sorry if this wakes you. Claire.

Without stopping to analyse her actions, Claire stuffed the phone back in her bag and continued her walk to the bus.

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