An update on Kepler's school progress. Alexandre, his teacher, got to work immediately on helping K integrate. I'm not saying that he forced some of the little boys to play with K but he definitely encouraged them.

And we put a letter into the little red book, that goes between home and school every day, addressed to one of the parents that Alexandre had suggested would be a good playmate, inviting Hugo to come over and play. And he came along with his mother, Christine, who was also delighted to make friends on her kid's behalf. They had a whale of a time playing. Not even the chocolate cake that Christine had baked and brought along was tempting enough to stop whatever it was that they were doing. It was something to do with dinosaurs.

Christine is an outsider too. The same integration problems as us with regards making friends in the locality, however she is French. Northern French. So being English, Scottish or American is irrelevant. We just aren't local. That makes it a bit easier to deal with. Anyway, I come from a village too so I can recognise a lot of the problems that we have come up against. As a child even children from "the lochside" – basically the other side of the loch – were "foreign". We thought we were so sophisticated in comparison and it didn't help that one of the "lochside" boys in my class held up his trousers with what appeared to be toilet chain. We were – unintentionally for the most part – savage in our effort to define and exploit any little difference we could perceive to either include them or exclude them from our games. However, we reserved the majority of our disdain for those whom we actually DID believe were "better" than us. Better meant more wordly. People who came from big cities, especially English cities, especially London, were better than us. People who were doing something different or, more accurately, exotic, were also "better".

I remember a small, slight kid arriving from London. Ben. I don't know why I remember him as he wasn't in my class – he was much younger, well probably a couple of years, and so he wasn't someone I would have deigned to play with. But I have a memory of a wraith, a sad shadow. He became – very wittily NOT, Big Ben. It wasn't funny even the first time but the continual ranting sneer "Big Ben!" must have made him sick with sadness and loathing. Even some of the teachers felt the need to elevate themselves over this gentle, urban boy and they called him Big Ben too. That's pretty sad, isn't it? but there was a lot of bullying going on at that time.

Other outsiders came too. A hippy commune started up on the other side of the hill and a group of their kids arrived. But they had the advantage of being a tribe themselves. And were tough in their peace and love way. They did what they wanted to do. They had a free-floating spirit that no amount of riling could disturb. Trying to hurt them would have been like trying to punch a dandelion clock. They would just float away, unharmed. They played clarinet and guitar and they danced and theatrically play-acted and, almost more importantly, they actually took pride in what they did and applied themselves and loved it. They didn't care if they were thought to be geeky (a word that did not exist then). And, because of their indifference to us they got partially absorbed into the school if not the local tribe.

Our tribe didn't like success. It didn't like if someone got ahead. That was thought to be arrogant somehow and we didn't appreciate someone trying to show us up. So a lot of my time in school was taken up with trying not to be the best at anything because that was another way of being excluded. Not that I was. It wasn't too hard not to be the best ;-) I must say I didn't try to be the worst either, just somewhere in the middle. I was invisible. And I don't know at what age that whole nihilistic thing started but it was pretty early, definitely in primary. It makes me sad to think about the waste of all that time. It certainly wasn't the fault of my parents. They would try and encourage us all and we had to do our homework but it was the whole atmosphere of the school. The ethos at our school wasn't about success, instead the pervading atmosphere felt more like we were being put through an educational sausage machine. And most of the sausages came out the same – bland and uniform and certainly not the best at anything. Oh, yes, one boy got to Cambridge but he was an outsider too.

Thankfully, schools are much better now. And I'm hoping Kepler's is too. But if it isn't we will find a better one. Right now though he is so much happier because he is breaking into the tribe and the actual hard work doesn't start until next year so he is a little way away from the sausage machine.

And, finally, we thought that it might be a good idea that he also join in some local activity so last Thursday he had his first judo class which a lot of the local kids go to. He loved it to the point of crying when we left. Judo in his mind equals running around in the opposite direction of the rest of the herd and generally squealing and grabbing hold of, or trying to escape from, Lilou (his amoureuse). Basically judo, right?

As I say he is much, much happier :-)