Saint Patricks day and trouble in the Middle East...

So tomorrow is Saint Patricks Day . It's also charity day in my children's school meaning that we have to provide our children with biscuits and icing ( eight-year-old boy ), cheap toys or cash ( nine-year-old girl ) and god knows what ( six-year-old boy ...I think he lost the letter) so they can set up stalls to raise money for a school in Africa...or something. Laudable as this is, I'd rather they used the cash raised to buy back the French teacher who was sent packing last year ('S ooooo, you've raised the fees and cut French lessons! Splendid idea!' ), or bring back the extra PE lessons, music lessons, art lessons, I could go on... Not sure how my suggestion might be received though, I'm just a paying parent after all. Still, it is a day where they don't need to wear a school uniform, something which always sends my pulse racing. Whoever made the statement that 'school uniforms are so much easier for parent's ' don't actuall...