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Life at home moves behind a playwall. This is how it happens. Our son's Wii and television time revolves around a world entirely alien to me,  something called WWE wrestling. I vaguely remember overweight wrestlers lumbering across the television screens of my childhood but they bear no resemblance to the gymn-toned muscle men who now keep us company with grunts and bloodless headbanging over breakfast, lunch and dinner. I share this, apologetically, with the gentle man who owns our local classical music shop, when purchasing the Associated Board's Grade I piano book. Turns out he is obsessed too, and he introduces us to the glories of wrestling at the O2 arena where we are now headed this autumn. Ode to Joy indeed. In between bouts on Sky and the Wii, we head off to Bay Sixty6 for skateboarding. Son practices piano on the iPad on the way over, using the Virtuouso app.  On the way home, he has an idea. 'How about if I limit my time playing the wrestling game on the Wii to two times a week?' I can't believe he has suggested this, all on his own. '\why yes,' I stammer, embarrassed that as mum, I didn't think of this first. 'Then if I don't play it at all, all week, you can double my pocket money.' I am stunned into acquiescence. The playwall descends. It's going to make him rich.

June 20, 2010

'The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts.'

Henry Moore