Paranoia and being a bit goth

This morning, dear daughter was padding down the stairs in shiny tights, when she slipped and fell halfway down them. It was a horrible fright, but thankfully there was no harm done. She was really shaken by the scare, though.

Do you know what saddened me beyond belief? Having checked that dd hadn't hurt her spine (she landed on her back) and calmed her down, my first thoughts weren't sheer gratitude for how lucky we'd been that she hadn't broken something or had a head injury. No: my immediate worry was that any neighbours who overheard a thud and a scream from a child during mainstream school hours would, in the light of the current negative publicity around home education, think of calling social services. Other home edders I've talked to are suffering from the same bouts of paranoia.

Yet what could I have done to prevent the fall? Installed a stairgate for a 12 year old? Banned shiny tights? In reality, absolutely nothing. It's truly sickening because, if anything's going to turn us into overprotective helicopter parents, it's this kind of fear. And that doesn't make for a happy engagement with the world.


Oh well, we had a lovely afternoon. DD met up with her oldest friend and they yomped through a very rainy and thundery Durham. We walked through the cathedral cloisters, looking for signs of the pipistrelle bats who've taken up residence in the rafters. And, because it was graduation day today, entry to the Treasury was free, so we got to see St Cuthbert's coffin, plus a portrait of an incredibly severe former bishop from the time of the Restoration (ironically not the kind of bloke you'd imagine having much to do with Charles II), and lots and lots of glittery chalices and candlesticks. All very gothic really, which suited the gloomy skies - and dd's lethal fashion sense - rather well.