Absolutely zero inspiration at the moment. The only bright spots in this day are the sunshine and the lovely exhibition pics on Chillsiders blog. I want to add a comment but as usual it is refusing to take my password... what's that about!

Fridays have become my day for going to church. Gasp. Shock. Horror! The prep school at which Sandy is a weekly border has a service for the junior school to which family and friends are invited. It's very nice and not really TOO religious although the hymns and homilies are all undeniably christian. There is also the Lord's Prayer. Sandy's grandad (my ex) claimed he heard me say 'Amen.' I am hotly denying it but secretly wondering if it may have slipped out - old habits die hard and all that.

It's nice to see the children trooping in, all smart in their kilts, mostly not looking like Just William. What I took to be a bruise on Sandy's cheek did turn out to be ink however - he hasn't quite got his new fountain pen under control. I watch anxiously for signs that he is settling in and making friends; happily those signs appear as another boy makes space for him, and then I see his rather nervous hand go up to volanteer for a part in one of the little playlets that the chaplain organises in illustration of the lesson of the week. This week it's Team Spirit and the passage about the parts of the body - the hand that can't be a hand unless it's got a foot to go with it. (Corinthians 12 "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body." It sounded MUCH more sonorous and evocative in the old translation.) Last week it was Helping Others. It's all very lightly done and humorous. The boy who got beaten up by robbers and helped by the Samaritan did an extremely realistic fall which earned him a loud round of applause.

They should get used to falling. Most of them are in the junior rugby team and I'm told there are at least two injuries per match. Sandy is a winger because he runs really fast. He explained that his friend Sam used to have a neck but since he's been in the front line of the scrum it's got shoved back into his shoulders! Both under 13 teams lost their match Saturday and Chloe heard one of the older boys coming off the field muttering 'Raped again!"

Sandy was staying over Friday because of the match, so once grandad and I had downed our tea and biscuit and spoken to his house master we drove him down to the refectory in the car to join his class mates (they must do a lot of walking in the course of a school day, the refectory is quite distance from the junior school building.) This gave us a chance to see the upper school pupils in their mufti - tight torn jeans, scruffy hoodies, they look real chavs although when spoken to they are extremely pleasant and polite. I like them. They have an enviable air of self-confidence. The school motto is: "Plus est en vous" (More is in you.) I hope Sandy soaks that up with his morning cornflakes to counteract other less positive elements in his life.

He doesn't eat the porridge. They make it with honey. Not very Scottish that.