Water Aid

Te Waif sat her entrance examination for the new school on Thursday. It seemed to go okay so fingers crossed......I was a little disappointed not to have heard from the Headmaster yesterday (Friday) but perhaps it takes longer than that to mark papers and to get hold of the Head at Waif's current school for references.

The psychiatrist from The Maudsley phoned yesterday but my husband took the call so I had no chance to add my tuppence worth - I want to let him know that, whatever she claims, Waif is calorie counting and calorie restricting. I also want to ask him about the change of school. I will call him on Monday.

Meanwhile, Waif announced to me that next week is Water Aid at school. This means that the girls are encouraged to drink only water (?????in solidarity with Africans who have not enough water) and not, Waif says, hot chocolate or juices. I have told her in no uncertain terms that that does NOT include her. I explained how the school would fully understand and even looked up the following about Ramadan as an analogy:

* A sick person: may break his fast which, if continued, would only aggravate the illness or delay its cure. Similar is the case of a the person who is overcome by hunger and/or thirst and fears that he may die because of it, even if he is resident and healthy.

I am tempted to follow this up with a mail to Waif's school to ask them to make clear that they are NOT asking the girls not to drink the milk that they need for strong bones and healthy teeth; that they are only asking the girls to give up sweet, fizzy drinks. I suspect that they are indeed asking the girls to give up ALL drinks but hope that such a mail might make them reconsider exactly what they are saying. On the other hand, I don't want to come across as the difficult parent from hell....

Addendum: it gets worse! On the school website it is urging the girls to get "sponsored" to give up hot chocolate and other drinks for a week!!!!! I am afraid that I will write.