T-Bird Anni Rides Again

Duke bought a PDA off E-bay however when he opened it today he found that

a) it was the model down from the advertised one which has half the memory and is a lot cheaper

b) the TomTom software advertised with it was in fact just a copy onto a data card not a legal licenced version.

so he mailed him to say gimme the money back.  the bloke’s reply was that he didn’t know a lot about PDAs and had just copied another ad and hadn’t noticed that "his" was a 50 not a 51 (despite it being quite clear on the front of the unit) and as for TomTom, he’d bought it that way off another Ebayer.  So if Duke would send the unit back he would refund him as soon as he had verified that the complain was genuine.

Should he send it back and trust the guy to keep his side of the bargain and refund him once he has the goods back in his posession?  Insist on a refund (plus extra for our posting costs) before we part with it?  and should we go to Ebay with him regardless for goods not being as advertised and pirate software?  Up til this point he had had only 1 negative comment which was a badly described item - a car that was sold as slight cosmetic damage but the buyer claimed it was a class D write off which seemed odd amongst pages of +ves. 

Now to be brutally honest here, if I’d have seen the ad first (and it was my fault that I didn’t, I declined to browse through pages of the damned things) and seen the final few lines I wouldn’t have traded - "I have tested this item and verified it is working so no refunds"  - why does taht not inspire confidence? 

Merry posted up a lovely post about why she home educates and it got me thinking about a conversation yesterday with my neighbour, Sam.

She has 2 boys (ages 8 and 6) in school and a girl in pre-school.  When L first started pre-school she raised questions about his speech but was told that everyone understood him and besides all little boys are a bit unclear at that age.  2 years later a change of school brought a different opinion and he started speech therapy.  Same boy, same school, last year Sam started asking if L may have dyslexic traits - he struggles to read, has apauling short term memory, very short attention span, slightly shady co-ordination but incredibly creative and really good at anything non-literacy based.  Teacher said not to worry, he was a little slow with reading but that’s okay at his age, children develop differently etc.  This year, new teacher, new opinion… he could well be dyxie, she would casually assess him over the next term to see if she could put together a case for the SENCo to look at (but she’s off on maternity the end of the school year so he won’t have the continuity of her again next year as he would otherwise have done)  Meanwhile younger brother M is just a shade below average at literacy stuff but streaks ahead at maths.  Sam keeps asking if he can be given something a bit more challenging/interesting for maths and being told he’s on the hardest level "for his age group".  The daughter, M, is already doing puzzle books for kids a year ot two older than her to keep her occupied whilst the boys are at swimming lessons, is desperate to read but has been taught letter names not sounds at pre-school and so now it totally freeked by the idea that she should be calling them something else.  Sam’s parting comment was that she would love to take them out of school b ut she wouldn’t have the patience to "home school" them.  The irony being she is training as a classroom assistant yet  doesn’t have the patience?

I was left feeling terribly sad for the whole family.  And incredibly relieved  that a chance conversation with someone at a Clothie Coffee when Aprilia was still tiny had let me know that there was even such a thing as home educating your child.  Like Merry, my original reason for home ed may not be the reason I would give now, I wsa protecting a child who was totally non verbal until just before her 3rd birthday (but who made a liar out of me by chattering non stop at her first MP winter camp!) and a child who was terrified of seperating from me unless it was to a very, very small selection of people who she felt she could trust.  Sometimes I feel I could be doing more with her, "teaching" her more, structuring her day more, pushing her to read more but then, at the same time I feel us sliding more and more comfortably into an almost but not quite autonomous state where she learns so much just by being.  And then I look over the fence at children who are at the *best* state primary in our area, the one that parents will move house and lie to get their child in at and I see a whole family being failed by it and I wonder how it could all go so very wrong.

well, we went to Ikea and that seemed to stretch out a long time really!  I got everything I wanted (mainly stuff to keep her toys more contained) and did it in the 45 minutes Aprilia played in the creche bit. I did have to laugh, as I went to check her in the lady said "oh, lovely another home educator, come in and join the other 2 girls!"  so off she went     Lunch was , obviously, hot dogs followed by ice cream in the Ikea cafe - its part of the rules of going.  As is the half hour on the outdoor play area directly after eating and insisting I come on the bouncy seesaw thing with her

Then we called at Mothercare on teh way home as they used to sell little lego and we need some.  they appear now to only do stuff for babies though (whatever happened to "Mothercare goes up to 10" ???) but we did get her feet measured and come home with a pair of in ya face pink Doodles to replace her tatty pumps.

One short TV interlude later we were off to Rainbows, well, okay, I drwe into the carpark and she flung herself out of the car and legged it before I had even found a parking place   I *do* worry about her social skills you know… (not!) 

and to finish the day off in fine style it was Ambi Aid at Red Cross.  The obigatory pre-season practice of helmet removal, collars and spinal boards with the newer members getting the easy task of a normal never quite properly fitted helmet and someone flat out face up and the ones who have been doing it longer getting me with a proffessionally fitted racing helmet (I hve friends in low places…) face down in a corner for a bit of a challenge