FUTUREPROOFING

In my travels I get to talk to some really interesting people. We drift into each others lives, communicate and drift on again. Some of them I feel that, given more time, I could make friends with. Some I couldn’t see off far enough. Some spark my curiosity, some are rivitingly boring.

My most recent encounter was with a lady at our local bus stop. We hadn’t realised that we were neighbours and after unpeeling our little charges onto the school bus we engaged in general chitchat before getting down and dirty. I told her about my blog she told me about her philosophy.

On such a short acquaintanceship it is probably wrong to jump to conclusions but I would say that she is a lady of great charm and experience. Her main home is in a part of the Home Counties that had recently been flooded. “But luckily we weren’t affected. Our house is high in the Chilterns”. Very posh!

It is her intention to show her three boys the world before the oil runs out! And what an agenda she has. She was leaving Switzerland that week for a “few weeks” in Spain. Followed by a swift visit home and then skiing in America for three weeks over Christmas. The youngest boy will spend the winter term boarding at school in Switzerland “to learn the language and gain experience”. She also mentioned an African safari at some point!

She is determined that the boys education is not to be compromised and said that she is instilling in them the need for conventional learning along the way. The oldest two go to public school in England, but she is adamant that learning should be more than reading, writing and ‘rithmatic.

Unfortunately, the world is a poorer place because people like this have no room in our modern society. Her “carbon footprint” is to be frowned on, keeping the boys off school is irresponsible and very un-PC, she could be judged to be just another rich-bitch.

But she maintains that she is giving the boys an opportunity to gain the worldliness necessary to cope with an ever changing, dangerous world. She is probably rearing and preparing future world leaders. I say good for her!