Hopscotch (by sarah)
I found some chunky chalks for a pound in Stoud and bought them to draw hopscotch for Jean along the drive.
This was a resounding success - she loves it though she doesn't entirely get the games you can play. Of course this was before The Rains that visited upon us the last week or so but is is now drawn back on in pink this time.
I got Jean to pick which colours to draw the outline in and then we did different colours for odd and even numbers - interestingly she pointed out that I was colouring the 1 of 10 the wrong colour as its an odd number - this took some explaining and I don't think so go it but I was impressed that she recognised a one to be quiet honest.
We took some of my nice ornimental pebbles from off of the rainbow/space garden I made last year and used them as our markers - mainly Jean just threw stones onto (or at least attempted too) the hopscotch.
When Ted the Taxi Man and Mary came to visit they were impressed with the hopscotch and said that your not allowed to play it on the streets anymore - that it counts as criminal damage and two kids have recently been fined! That is quiet frankly rediculous - please I thought tell me its a joke or scare mongering...
So did a google search:
This one was in 2007 and involves the perants being told off for allowing the children to play in the streets - even though they were obviously keeping an eye on what was happening other wise they wouldn't have noticed the police :/
Now its not so much the police over reacting as they were doing there job - and they say once they realised what it was they knew it wasn't criminal damage as it was chalk and therefore not perminant - but why did the neighbour report it in the first place?
Can't they kids playing from thugs? This lot weren't even teenagers just littlys 🙁
This one on the other hang is quiet scary - did they really arrest a 12 yr old and put her in a cell for hopscotch?
People complain that kids are playing innocent games and are vandalising the street like they are not citizens of this country too and don't deserve to be allowed use of the facilities - a pavement is a facility provided by the council for goodness sake. Something is very very broken when hope scotch is band! Griffiti - really?
Both these reports are from a few years ago and I couldn't find any mention of the local incident where the kids were reputedly fined like £80 i think Ted said it was in Cotwold Life Magizine or something like that - if anybody could shed more light on this I would appreciate it.
If I had lived in a street I probably would have been sitting outside with Jean chalking the hopscotch onto the pavement - would I have then been made to scrub it off as Jean is under 10?
Chalk washes away for goodness sakes - when we played in the street there wasn't chalk in ready supply and the kids including me used to scrape the hopscotches onto the pavement with stones - no-one ever complained and I remember the police man who did live down our street giving us chalk so we wouldn't damage things.
People moan about teenagers and even kids doing actual criminal things but if we wont let them do the kid things then what do people actually expect to happen.
Plus we are breeding discontent in the youngster and how are they suppose to respect the police when the police are telling them off for playing hopscotch?
I try not to go on about politacal things too much but I'm mean really - how can we live in a society like this? A society that bans children from being children - they are kids not minni adults - they know more than previous generations it is true but they are still kids and they need to explore the world through play.
They need to be part of a society not seperate from it and if they are not allowed to at least interact with each other and learn how to be part of a social group then we are heading for trouble. I see this building on many sides with age ghettotization springing up - single mothers on the council estate and rich olds in retirement villages many of whom have never had proper social interaction with children.
We are human we are disigned to live in communitees with all ages mixed in together - seperating people into groups always leads to trouble or is this another case of use not learning from the past?
Sarah takes a deep breath and walks away from the computer muttering
Sun 14th Jun 2009 6:22 pm 
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By @ndy, Mon 15th Jun 2009 @ 10:10 am
Don't fret! This rant was well worth it: I feel the same rage for the silliness.
By sarah, Tue 16th Jun 2009 @ 9:33 am
Thankyou Andy - I am watching the old people in the village being shunted into a retirement village and the teens being excluded from things and those in their 20's living in the batchulor pads in the towns and I just think it's going to back fire.
By Ella, Thu 18th Jun 2009 @ 1:36 pm
From the story: "A community support officer visited the location and the girls' behaviour was brought to the attention of their mothers. By targeting what may seem relatively low-level crime, we aim to prevent it developing into more serious matters."
What the hell do they expect? Hopscotch will lead to B&E? They're start playing with spraypaints? Hopskotch - the gateway exercise to parkour! Defend our nation against these evil teens who destroy society by trying to walk on one foot! Maths game linked terrorism!
How stupid.
By Sarah, Sat 20th Jun 2009 @ 2:51 pm
Well yes exactly - Some one needs to inject sense back into this country!