Heaven help the person who touches one of my children, though. Lioness does not even start to cover it!

The origami image is very apt. I often teach origami by showing the finished product, giving a pristine piece of origami paper to try with, and having a pre-folded, ready creased sheet up my sleeve in case they flounder and need a bit more structure (‘here, try with this sheet… that’s it, just fold along that crease, and take that corner up… there; you see?’)

‘Oh yes, sir’ said I. And I got the job.

And of course you do let things unfold. It is just that you have usually organised the origami beforehand.

I fear that is a bit like me saying ‘I’m happy just to let things unfold…’

In mediaeval pictures, it is common to see the BVM standing with her breasts uncovered; she is pleading with Christ by reminding him that once he depended on her very body to live. In the same way, most of the world accepts that for the sake of all our human futures, women need to feed their children.

Generally (though you were unlucky with your brother Di!) I have found feeding causes less offence than one expects. I’m rather giving offence for no reason. But I find a link with the blog post on holiness on this matter. Sometimes you need to take a firm line. This is, I think one such matter. Children really matter. Not as little gods to be protected from every harm and indulged in every way, and kept in purdah, but as living human beings with real urgent needs.

Women really matter too. This issue is about how society approaches their sexuality. It is something which needs a reality check.

Oh and my two month old son was once banned from a wedding (my brother’s) because he was breastfed and people were afraid I’d whip out a tit in church. I was forced to dash home between wedding service and reception to feed him and then spent most of the reception in agony and worrying that he’d be all right with the babysitter. Perhaps your daughter’s friend’s baby is one of those who are easily put off feeding by strange noises or distractions. Don’t despair.

Well, let us just say that I removed my two elder children from school – the younger was utterly miserable, and not being allowed to go to the loo when she needed. Attempts by my ex to sort it out were met by the incomparable reply that the teacher (of primary twos) was not there to make the children happy but to fit them into the system. The fact the poor child had the humiliation of wet knickers every day could simply not prevail against such a pressing need. The younger ones were taught at home for the word go, and all returned at some point to secondary school, where they were habitually bored, but coped pretty well. All were academically successful.

Most teachers do do their best, many are highly motivated and enthusiastic, but I think cramming a large number of very small children into a small room, and promoting a very particular kind of learning does promote a very particular kind of culture for the children. For many and for many of the brightest, it is a very negative experience.

I’m sorry to figure as ‘everybody and his auntie’. I had a primary teacher mother. I have five children. I teach adults. I think you have to allow interested non-teachers to have views on schools.

But I admit that currently I am more irascible than usual. I am sat waiting for it to be time to ring the vet and find out what the prognosis on my young cat, victim of a RTA currently is.

They do not understand creeds and vows make them uneasy by their very intensity. They want to claim that they are good people = and even that despite not church going they do believe something and that something is valuable.

I’m far more depressed by a conversation I have been having on another site about ‘what goes around comes around’ and how we need to hate and punish ourselves and others.