Faintly Depressing

I am doing quite well in seeing the positive.  I have seen references to 100 Happy Days.  I would be a complete epic fail with that.  I struggle with 100 Happy Hours.  I am working on it.

Today I had a lot of good feelings from walking to see uncle through the park and then back through a new short cut.  It is definitely a shortcut for dry weather, but it was fun.  It sort of helped with the visit with uncle, which was a little hard.  Uncle does not believe he is in Leeds.  He has a photo on the wall taken of him, DH and bear and is insistent that it was taken in Wrexham.  It wasn't.  He has also been very shouty by his own admission.  Uncle never used to be shouty.  I never heard him raise his voice.  The wound where his leg was amputated is still infected and he is on his second lot of antibiotics.  However he loves bear, completely, and seeing that and that he is enjoying looking at his picture and generally getting involved in bear's life is brilliant. It is a silver lining.

Father has not heard about the chest scan.  He is a bundle of nerves.  His knee is bad so he is only trying the stairs when he absolutely has to while utterly refusing the thought of a stair lift and completely rejecting a visit to the GP.  Also Liverpool FC lost this weekend and that isn't good.  However he is finding his own silver lining and with the World Cup and Commonwealth Games coming up he has a lot to look forward to.  He is enjoying company as well, so that is good.

The writer's prompt on Light and Shade is going well, and that is very positive.

What has left me feeling faintly depressed is a flyer that came with the Tesco order.  It is advertising tutoring.  Bear is due to do his SATS soon, or rather, the second lot as he did the stuff he should be doing now in February and is now going for something that is a level up.  I think that is good and I am happy for now to leave it between bear and school.  But this leaflet was promising help with exams and SATS and the 11+  I'm quietly confident that bear will be fine, and that he will take it all as it comes with his usual nonchalant attitude.  What is depressing is the huge weight that this seems to be putting on kids.  I know that there will be parents at bear's school tutoring their kids to death, far beyond what they are naturally capable of, and they will be sitting down in the same classroom for the exam as the kids whose parents don't even read to them.  I wonder what bear will take away from all this.

I am now about to go out and pick up bear from school and it is sunny.  That is a bright side.