Jubilee, Home and Nostalgia

Today is one of those days. Feeling down and sad, for no particular reason. I miss my parents, I miss home.

We went to the library this morning, in search of inspiration for BK1's poetry "assignment". In the wake of her Mysterios Poem, her teacher has asked her to write a poem on the Queen's Jubilee, and send it to the Queen. Hardly inspirational, less than Roald Dahl in any case...

Anyway, here we are in the library. A mum is telling her friend she is invited to a wedding this evening.
When was the last time I attended a wedding? My neighbour's in Algeria, two years ago.

A realisation dawns on me: My children will probably never take part in adult celebrations in the UK. We have no family here; the only celebrations we get invited to are children's birthdays.

I have vivid memories of weddings, circumcision parties, diploma celebrations and the like in my childhood: games, lamb couscous, baklava and qnidlat, traditional costumes and dresses, gold and silver jewellery, music and zerna, dancing, family crises, gossip, cousins, friendships...

My daughters are missing out on this part of culture, because neither of BabelDad nor me are home.

I wonder how this will impact on their perceptions of fun and sense of belonging somewhere. Where will home be for them?

The mysterios poem

higher and higher and higher they flew.
bigger and bigger and bigger the bomb grew.
over the sea and over the hills,
calling their teddys teddy sills.
The centipede said "I want food"
but the others said he was very rude.

The people in the city stared,
and the president of the city glared.
He sent his army to fight,
but they had to do it with all their might.

meanwhile on the bomb they all looked to the floor,
but then they heard a terifing roar.
It sounded like a dragon
roaring and being dragged into a wagon.

Just then came a plane,
which was called a super Jane.
She cut through the seagull string
and sent them tumbling through the wind.

when they actually reached the floor,
they could still hear the terifying roar.

It was the dragon who wanted to be their freind.








ps: BK1, aged 7, wrote this poem at home over two days. She had just finished reading  James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. She said of Roald Dahl: "Yekteb exciting, ma usich bezzef wow words, just a few". (he writes in an exciting way, he does not use many wow words, just a few).
Later on she said writing a rhyming poem had been hard work, next time she will write a non-rhyming one.