petite anglaise

While Tadpole splashes merrily in the bath, her legs pressed together into her best impression of a mermaid’s tail, I decide to get changed. I take my MILF status very seriously, which means my cotton underwear must make way for something a little more transparent and titillating before the Boy returns home from work.

I remove my jeans and underwear, frowning at Tadpole, who appears to find my nudity a cause for hilarity.

“What on earth is so funny?” I ask, my cheeks reddening a little.

“I just laughing at your bottom,” Tadpole explains, between giggles. “It’s so big. And FAT. Like a whale.” Tadpole holds up a turquoise whale to illustrate her point - it’s one of the anti-slip shapes which adhere to the bottom of our bathtub - and traces the curve of its back with her index finger.

“A whale?” I splutter, both amused and horrified. “My bottom is like a whale?”

“Yes, like a whale,” Tadpole confirms. “Or a mountain.” She ponders for a moment, evidently searching for another simile. “Mummy…?”

“Mhm.”

“How do you say in English the bosse of a camel?”

To say that Tadpole rarely shares insights about her secret life in the moyenne section of our local maternelle would be something of an understatement. Invariably, on the way home from school, we have a conversation which goes something like this.

Me: “So, what did you do today?”

Tadpole: “Just some things.”

Me: “What did you have for lunch?”

Tadpole: “I can’t remember. But you can look on the computer, mummy, can’t you…?”

Which is why I was rather taken by surprise when she randomly launched into a playground anecdote over dinner yesterday evening. An anecdote which concerned a boy who was in her class last year. I am still at a loss to understand what caused the memory to surface just then.

“Mummy?” says Tadpole between mouthfuls of canneloni (from which I have scraped all trace of bechamel sauce, at her behest). “When I was three years old and I was in the other class at school…” - she holds up three fingers in case I need help understanding the concept - “…one day I did go in the playground with Youssouf while the other children were doing music.”

“Mmhm?” I repy, stabbing several green beans onto her fork, because for some reason, even though Tadpole is perfectly capable of feeding herself, she generally loses the will to eat after approximately five mouthfuls in the evenings and I have to step unwillingly into the breach.

“And I did ask Youssouf ‘tu es mon amoureux?‘ and he said ‘oui‘ and we did hold hands for a little while,” Tadpole continues.

I like the word ‘amoureux‘. The Boy often uses it when introducing me to a friend of his for the first time. I like to think of it as a combination of ‘beloved’ and ‘lover’ - literally it means ‘the person I’m in love with’. It’s so much nicer than ‘ma copine‘ (too impersonal, it could designate any female friend) or ‘ma petite copine‘ (even if I am used to answering to the name ‘petite‘). What the term ‘amoureux‘ implies to a four-year-old though, I’m far from sure.

“Is Youssouf still your amoureux now?” I enquire, setting down the fork for a moment.

“No. He did have the nez coulé and it wasn’t very nice,” Tadpole explains with a grimace. I freeze. Just how close did my daughter get to that runny nose of his?

“And, um, do you have an amoureux now?”

“I play with Dinah now,” Tadpole replies. “And Youssouf, he plays with Hicham.” This, I surmise, could mean one of two things. That their short-lived relationship was so traumatic that it drove both of them into the arms of a same-sex partner, or that amoureux, to Tadpole, simply means ‘best friend’.

“So, who is mummy’s amoureux?” I ask, keen to test my theory immediately.

“You have two,” says Tadpole, with a triumphant smile that means she is convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt she knows the correct answer. “Daddy… And Meg.”

I heave a sigh of relief.

It is a week in which I’ve already made two Paris-London-Paris trips on the Eurostar, complete with identical on-board meals of hachis parmentier and a very bland slice of bakewell tart on both Sunday and Wednesday evenings, and adjusted my watch five times (albeit a little slow on the uptake the day that daylight saving time was adopted, having completely forgotten).

On Thursday, Tadpole and I board a flight to Leeds. I pore over the in-flight magazine, wondering what my collection of loose change can buy us for lunch. I would appear to have exactly £7.70. Just enough to procure one “junior snack pack” and a still mineral water (for her) plus one packet of mini-cheddars and a coffee/kitkat combo (for me). Not the most nutritious meal, with not a hint of the requisite five servings of fruit or vegetables, but we’ve had worse. I wedge the magazine into the seat pocket in front of me and settle back in my seat, closing my eyes for a moment, waiting for the attendants to reach us.

Tadpole is studying the laminated safety card with fierce intent.

“Mummy?”

“Mhm?” I mumble, without opening my eyes.

“Why does a cross sometimes mean a kiss but sometimes it means ‘no, you CAN’T do THAT’? Those two things are not the same at ALL, are they?”

“I suppose you’re right,” I say, opening my eyes and leaning forwards to rummage in my handbag for moleskine and a pencil, nostils flaring. I smell a blog post in the making: Tadpole appears to be on fine form today. “So… what does it say that we’re not allowed to do, on the card?”

“It says no cigarette,” says Tadpole primly. “But that’s alright because me and you, we don’t fume any cigarette, do we?” I shake my head. “And it says no telephone…” she pauses and looks at me accusingly. “Why did you bring your telephone, mummy? It’s not allowed, it says it here!”

“Ah, I’m allowed to bring it, you see, but I am supposed to switch it off…” I fumble in my handbag once more and re-read my last message from the Boy, for the nth time, before complying.

“Why are those people going on a toboggan?” Tadpole wonders aloud, pointing at the picture of a landing at sea - I love the fact that there is a proper French word for this: “amerissage” which somehow makes it sound like something utterly banal and routine, and not at all like an exceptional emergency occurrence - in which several people are calmly gliding down an inflatable slide, minus their baggage and shoes. I decide not to evoke the possibility of planes falling unexpectedly out of the sky and mumble something implausible about people using slides when there aren’t any spare sets of stairs handy at the airport, instead. No sense in worrying her. Flying has hitherto been as natural to Tadpole as taking a taxi, and I wouldn’t want to change that. Pointing at the next picture, I lure her eyes away before she has time to register that the runway is blue and slightly squiggly.

“What do you think this one means?” I say, tapping my finger against a picture of an unfeasibly high stilletto shoe with a bold black cross through it.

“No princess shoes,” Tadpole replies with unshakable certainty.

Chortling, I reach for my pencil.

from Mr Frog
to    Petite Anglaise
date 19 Sep 2007 21:16

subject Quote of the Day

“Aujourd’hui dans la cour de récréation Matthias il nous a montré son zizi…. C’était très rigolo.”

I chuckle aloud, paste the quote into my ongoing MSN chat with the Boy (his response: “let’s hope Matthias is a four-year-old”), then file it in my brain under “things I musn’t forget to use one day in a blog post”.

Several days later, Tadpole and I are in the unisex, open plan changing rooms at the kids’ swimming pool we visit on Sunday mornings. When we first began frequenting the pool, I used to manoeuvre myself into my underwear with embarrassed awkwardness, under cover of a huge towel. Then one day I realised that normal rules didn’t apply here. Something about the fact that we are all parents, surrounded by young children, rubbing the sleep from our eyes and wishing that we were at home with a steaming mug of coffee and a newspaper, makes casual nudity even more asexual than a nudist beach in Greece.

Tadpole sits on the bench, swaddled in a hooded towel, wearing an extremely disgruntled pout. Persuading her to leave the pool had not been easy, and involved my resorting to a whole spectrum of parental behaviour - wheedling, promises, threats, pointless lengthy negotiations, raised voices - approaches proscribed one and all by the child rearing manual Mr Frog pointedly lent me the other day. Our altercation culminated in the tenth “I’m not your friend” of the day (it is midday), followed a dose of the silent treatment (a blessing in disguise).

Suddenly Tadpole’s eyes widen at the sight of the small child opposite, and she opens her mouth to speak, her fit of pique instantly forgotten. “Mummy! That girl has got a zizi! Why has that girl got a zizi?”

I sneak a glance at the child in question - male, without a shadow of a doubt - and consider how to respond. Probably best to keep things simple. Conversations about gender reassignment can doubtless wait until she is a little older. “Well,” I say slowly. “We know that only boys have zizi’s, don’t we? So that means it must be a boy, not a girl.”

“But mummy, she had the voice of a girl!” Tadpole protests with a crumpled brow.

“Little boys’ voices are often just the same as little girls’ voices,” I reply. “But if you see a zizi, it’s always a boy. That’s how you can always tell the difference between boys and girls, ladies and men…”

At this, Tadpole gives me a very strange look. In her opinion, I have taken leave of my senses.

“No!” she says emphatically. “My daddy doesn’t, any more. Maybe he did have a zizi when he was a little boy, but then he growed up and it disappeared.”

“I think you might be wrong about that honey,” I reply, the corners of my mouth twitching. “So, when we see daddy later, perhaps you should ask him…”

Tadpole and I are making our way home from “daddy’s house”. We make excruciatingly slow progress, as she insists on pulling her Miffy wheelie weekend bag along herself rather than letting me carry it. My eyes are riveted on the pavement ahead so that I can give advance warning should we encounter anything unsavoury left behind by a pigeon, dog or human.

Grinding to a halt at a pedestrian crossing, Tadpole suddenly becomes very excited at the sight of a teenage girl across the road.

“Wow! Look mummy! That girl has really red hair! Absolutely exactly the same red colour as the Little Mermaid!”

I take my eyes off the traffic lights for a moment and obediently take a look. The girl in question, striding away on the opposite pavement, has dyed her hair an unnaturally deep red, a cross between the claret colour so often favoured by Parisian café owners when choosing their awnings and my own crimson bedclothes. Uncannily similar to Tadpole’s Little Mermaid doll’s dishevelled mane. A colour which looks better, in my humble opinion, on fabric than on hair.

“Oh look, the green man!” I say, changing the subject and grabbing Tadpole’s free hand.

Later that evening, as I pull a wide-toothed comb through her damp ringlets (amusingly called “anglaises in her father tongue), I make the mistake of doing my thinking aloud. “We really must go to see a hairdresser sometime,” I say. “If we cut your hair just a little bit, then it will grow thicker, and longer.” I’ve been saying this for the past two years, ever since Tadpole’s hair finally deigned to begin growing in earnest, but somehow we’ve never got round to it.

“Mummy?” says Tadpole, turning to face me, her brow furrowed, “when you go to the see the hairdresser, sometimes the hairdresser puts some colour, doesn’t he?”

“Well, yes,” I admit. “I sometimes make it a little bit blonder, because it used to be light like yours, but now it’s darker…” I can almost see the cartoon lightbulb flickering to life above my daughter’s head, and have a sudden inkling of what is coming next.

“So when I go to see the hairdresser, can he make my hair a different colour too? Because I would like to have really really red hair like Ariel’s!”

I pause, wondering how to respond, then a phrase falls from my lips which somehow I never expected to find myself using quite so soon. “Not until you are at least sixteen years old, young lady! Your hair is very pretty just the way it is!”

“But mummy,” protests Tadpole with a sullen pout I find eerily familiar. “Sixteen years old is in a long long long time.”

Combing duty over, I pull myself to my feet and lead the way through into the bedroom.

“Hell yes,” I mutter under my breath.

Tadpole and I are in a taxi, speeding along the A1 on the way to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. Tadpole is chattering away, nine to the dozen, and I am marvelling at the ease with which she has slipped back into English after a three week holiday spent entirely in French mode with mamie and papy.

“I’m so excited to go to see grandma and grandad,” she says, her eyes sparkling. “Grandad, he does always call me ‘long skinny banana legs’ and ‘curly top’, and he make me laugh…”

The previous day, when Mr Frog answered the door, I was overjoyed to be greeted by shrieks of “mummy, mummy, you’re here… I did miss you!” as a blurry, long-limbed figure with honey-coloured ringlets launched herself across the room and into my arms, nearly toppling me with the force of her hug. Usually it takes her a few hours to acclimatise herself after a prolonged absence, with me speaking English in the meantime, but Tadpole replying in French. Mr Frog, I noted, looked as surprised and pleased as I did to see her plunge into her mother tongue the very moment she clapped eyes on me.

“Mummy?” says Tadpole, putting a hand on my arm.

“Mmm?”

“When I’m thinking,” she says slowly, “on top of my head there are some clouds.” Her hands motion in the air above her curls. “A little cloud here, another little cloud on top, and then a big big cloud that touches the ceiling of the taxi car… Like in a bande dessiné. Can you see my clouds, mummy?”

I pretend to study the air above her head before I make my answer. “No,” I reply with a frown. “I think they must be invisible.”

“In the big cloud,” she says confidentially, “there is a picture of a teddy. Because I thinking that I would like to buy a new teddy.”

I grin, then lean across the leather seat of the taxi and cover her face with impulsive kisses.

That evening, chatting to my boy on MSN, I tell him about the thought bubbles, knowing that he will be suitably impressed, being a typical Frenchman with a sizeable collection of BD on his well-stocked, slightly intimidating bookshelves.

“If I had a bubble over my head right now,” I write, returning to the subject later, when our conversation has veered onto other, more adult, topics, “it would probably be prefaced with Viewer Discretion Advised!…” This elicits a virtual chuckle. My boy, who has been immobilised for a few days with a back pain of mysterious origin (for which I intend to take full credit in the absence of any compelling medical evidence to the contrary), pauses for a moment before replying.

“J’aurais peur de lire ‘previously on the world poker tour’ au dessus de ma tête,” he confesses sheepishly.

“Mummy?” says Tadpole, seconds after the front door closes behind “mummy’s friend”.

“Yes?” I say, hand poised to squirt ketchup onto a slice of baguette, in readiness for a much needed fish finger sandwich.

“Have you got a baby in your tummy yet?”

I flinch, and the ketchup misfires, liberally coating the worktop.

“No sweetie, I don’t have a baby in my tummy…” I say slowly, once I’ve recovered my composure, setting down the ketchup and crossing my fingers. “Why are you asking me that today?”

“Because mummy, when I said that I wanted a sister or a brother, like Anna at school, you said ‘maybe when you’re six years old’. And I’m already four years old. And after twenteen more sleeps I will be five, and then six…”

I sigh, and resolve never again to bow to Tadpole’s pressure to put a time limit on everything. Future events are always measured in sleeps in our household. And she has an alarming habit of remembering throwaway comments made six months or more ago, deliberately glossing over the word “maybe” and then repeating them to me with a “but you said as though I’d made some sort of legally binding promise.

“You know,” I say suddenly, with a sly smile, “daddy could make you a brother or sister. Maybe you should talk to daddy about this, too.”

A problem shared, I think to myself, picturing Mr Frog’s face, is a problem halved.

It’s hard to believe that four years have skittered by since Tadpole was born.

I remember the sensation of her hiccupping inside my tummy when the Rough Guide to Pregnancy told me she was about the size of an avocado pear. I remember how she used to sleep on my shoulder, her fists curled above her head.

And now she is an independent little madam who likes to do everything for herself; a strong-willed, scarily intelligent and perceptive little person who runs rings around me every day.

Something tells me that before she turns five, she’ll have a blog of her own…

“Mummy, would you like to have coconuts cups on your nipples?”

I ponder this for a moment. We are lying in Tadpole’s bed, our heads under the covers, it is 7.15 am, and these rather surreal words are the first my daughter has uttered this morning. Suddenly realisation dawns. Which is a blessing. Because there is nothing worse at the moment than the wrath I incur when Tadpole says something and I don’t immediately twig what she is talking about.

“You mean like the Barbie dolls in the window at Zoë Bouillon?” Zoë Bouillon is a soup café on rue Rebeval that we occasionally walk past. I am proud to have remembered this: last time we marvelled at the window display of oddly dressed Barbie dolls was at least a fortnight ago.

“Yes! Like in the potage shop!” Tadpole is delighted that we are on the same wavelength this morning. “Or, would you like to wear flowers stuck on your nipples instead? That might be more prettier. We could stick some with glue.”

Hmmm, I think to myself. How about neither? Because I’m not a Barbie doll, or some sort of burlesque act, and it’s 7.15 am? But instead I say “I don’t think I need any coconut cups or flowers, right now, because I’m wearing a T-shirt, but maybe another time… because I’m sure it would be very pretty.” Tadpole nods, satisfied with my reasoning, then frowns a puzzled frown.

“Mummy? Why do some people say ‘priddy’ and not pretty.” This is what comes of exposing my daughter to Disney CD’s, I think to myself.

“You mean like the little mermaid? Well, she speaks American.” I try to convey by my intonation that this is a kind of inferior language with which I would rather Tadpole didn’t sully her lips.

“Do princesses always speak Merican?”

“Some princesses do. And our friend Meg does too.” Tadpole considers this exciting new piece of information for a moment. Meg is popular in our household, so I’ve probably just shot myself in the foot. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tadpole adopted an American accent from this moment on. It is therefore something of a relief when she opens her mouth and continues speaking in her usual blend of Yorkshire/RP/French.

“When I grow into a big lady,” she says decisively, “I’m going to speak Merican and be just like Meg.” I raise my eyebrows, as an image of Meg trying to smuggle bottles of beer into a nightclub inside her tights springs unbidden into my mind. I suppose there could be worse role models.

“But,” she adds with a grimace, “NOT with the same hair.”

This post is dedicated to Uncle Norman, author of this rather sparsely punctuated comment on my last “post”: “Stick to writing about your kid and being shagged in work time leave real life to the grown ups.”

So, I’ve written about my daughter, which is a start, and just leaves his second request. Anyone fancy distracting me from my deadline today? Conveniently, I’m working on my bed at the moment (although one end is currently propped up with Le Petit Robert.) So?

Tadpole’s latest obsession is with Lauren Child’s Charlie and Lola.

After the prolonged agony of her Dora the Explorer phase, hearing Tadpole trying to mimic characters with proper English accents comes as a profound relief. And there is something about the way Lola is drawn, with unruly hair falling across mischievous eyes, which reminds me of Tadpole.

The books have names like “I am not Sleepy and I will not go to Bed” or “I am absolutely too small to go to School” or “My Wobbly Tooth must not Ever Never Fall Out”, and cleverly deal with a lot of the issues toddlers have, like having their hair cut (Princess No Knots) and eating vegetables (which seem to go down a whole lot better when you say they are from Jupiter).

If I might put in a couple of requests though, Lauren, would you consider writing “I will not Ever Never wear trousers to school” or “I am absolutely too small to do my poo poos in the toilet”?

Our latest game is to speak in the style of Charlie and Lola - I am, of course, always cast in the role of Charlie - her sensible but wily older brother - and usually end up saying “but Lola!” rather a lot.

Yesterday Tadpole came out with the following gem, which still has me sniggering this morning:

“I am absolutely ever never good. And sometimes I am naughty”

Laden with bags, Tadpole and I leap onto a number 26 bus. I still have my carte intégrale - despite it being surplus to requirements most of the time because I now walk to work, and school, and only take public transport about twice a week - because there is no weaning me off that addictive drrriiinging sound said card makes as I swipe it over the scanner. But we still clamber onto the bus using the middle doors, along with the fare dodgers and women with pushchairs. We’re not going far, and this way it will be so much easier to get off again.

Right on cue, the driver plays a pre-recorded message asking people to refrain from entering the bus by the middle doors. For good measure he also plays a message which exhorts everyone to move along to the centre of the bus in order to make more room. We have broken one rule, all the better to comply with another, I think to myself. Perfectly reasonable behaviour.

“I going to show daddy all my new clothes!” says Tadpole excitedly. Shamed into action by Mr Frog’s remark the previous day about how most of Tadpole’s long-sleeved t-shirts barely graze her elbows, we’ve been on a spree at Du Pareil au Même. The bag I’m clutching is filled with garishly patterned cotton skirts and brightly coloured t-shirts, as well as a term’s supply of hair clips. Every day Tadpole leaves for school with a clip holding her curls out of her face, and every evening she emerges sans barrette. Somewhere in that school there must be a huge vat full of hair accessories, but whenever I’ve broached the subject with her teacher, she shrugs her shoulders and purses her lips.

“Hold the bar tightly with both hands!” I say sharply, just as the bus slams on the brakes at a zebra crossing and nearly sends Tadpole flying. But her left hand appears to be otherwise occupied, rummaging in the back of her trousers; her brow is furrowed with concentration.

“But mummy!,” she says indignantly, “I need to help her to escape!”

“Help who to escape?” I lean forwards to try and establish just who, or what could possibly be imprisoned inside Tadpole’s trousers.

“Ma culotte! She’s prisoner! My bottom is eating her!” Tadpole explains, switching into French, all the better to entertain our fellow passengers.

I should probably pitch in and help liberate the pants, or at the very least correct Tadpole’s use of pronouns, but instead, I just giggle, bend to plant a delighted kiss on her cheek and say: “Oh? And is she tasty?”

****

Slightly more serious posting over here, if you fancy joining the debate.

I printed out lots of short, easy words today and cut them out. The idea was to make sentences with Tadpole, who can now sound out words quite confidently, and see if she wanted to build a few of her own. The little flaw in my plan being that every time she said the letter “p”, the corresponding gust of wind blew them off the table, so that they fluttered to the floor like early learning confetti.

To overcome Tadpole’s strange reluctance to actually flex her reading muscles, I wisely included a few words which would make her laugh, such as: poo, wee, bum, potty and prout (I’ve yet to find an English word for this bodily function which I like the sound of half as much). Sounding out a phrase like “mummy did a poo on the cat” is clearly far more fun than “the cat sat on the mat”. I am however thankful that she is unlikely to repeat any of these at school, as nobody else speaks English.

How about this one, I said, throwing in a wildcard Yorkshire phrase which she associates with her Morris dancing grandad.

“Eeee Baa Goom” Tadpole said hesitantly.

“Say it a bit faster?”

“Ee bah gum!” she said with a giggle. “Just like my grandad says!”

“I wonder how you’d say that in French,” I said, thinking out loud really, not expecting Tadpole to have an opinion on the matter. She’s been repeating that phrase since she was very small indeed, mimicking her grandad because she can play a whole roomful of people for laughs with these three magic words. But I don’t suppose she’s ever stopped to think what they actually mean.

I was wrong.

“En français, moi je dirais OH LA LAAA!” cried Tadpole triumphantly.

Somebody get this girl a stamp, I think I’ve spawned a certified translator.

I glance anxiously at my watch. It is 8.27. School drop-off time is between 8.20 and 8.30, and the small but perfectly formed tantrum Tadpole threw just as we were poised to leave the flat - when I so foolishly dared to insist she wear a scarf to ward off the biting cold - has cost us dearly. If we don’t get a move on, I will be one of the latecomers, those wretched folk who scuttle past the directrice, head down, shoulders hunched, to escape the full force of her withering stare. I quicken my pace, and Tadpole breaks from a trot into a canter in order to keep up with me.

But when we reach the slightly surreal Chinese shop which sells wedding dresses and ball gowns which wouldn’t look out of place at a Jordan and Peter André wedding, Tadpole grinds to a stubborn halt.

“Look mummy! Princess dresses!” She tears her hand free from my grip and gestures excitedly at the window display. A particularly unattractive frothy pistachio number catches my eye and causes me to shudder, involuntarily.

“I like the white ones better,” I say, pointing towards something marginally more tasteful. “Those dresses are for weddings. Just like in the Little Mermaid, you remember, when Ariel marries her prince?”

Tadpole nods. “Yes, I know mummy.” This is her new favourite phrase, designed to shame me into silence if I over-explain things in a patronising tone, and terriblement efficace.

I grab her hand and we hurry on. I dare not look at my watch. I’m simply banking on the fact that it may be one minute fast.

“When I’m a big lady,” Tadpole says suddenly, “just after my tooth gets wobbly, I’m going to marry a prince as well.” She has a slight obsession with wobbling teeth at the moment, courtesy of a Charlie and Lola episode entitled “My wobbly tooth must not ever never fall out”. I have assured her that there will be no wobbling before she is six years old, but she seems to have decided that grown up teeth equals adulthood.

“Hmm. Maybe a little while after your teeth start wobbling, but yes, I’m sure you’ll get married in a pretty dress one day,” I say brightly, although I feel like I’m sucking on lemons.

“Yes, I’m going to marry a prince. Daddy is my prince,” she says with absolute certitude.

Will someone who, unlike me, actually reads all those parenting manuals and knows about the phases little girls go through be kind enough to reassure me that this is a Perfectly Normal Phase?

Please?

Tadpole and I sit on her bed, side by side. I bend forwards to unbuckle her shoes (Clarks, navy blue and purple with sequins. Sensible shoes fit for a princess.)

“Mummy, I can see a bottom peeping there,” shrieks Tadpole. An icy hand reaches for the space between my jumper and my low waist jeans and I flinch in anticipation of her touch.

“Why do they fall off, your trousers?” she continues, puzzled now. “Look mummy!” She turns to show me her own rear. “We can’t see my bottom, can we? My trousers don’t do that…”

“And a good thing too!” I say, hastily pulling my jumper down.

There are some scenes that need to take place behind closed doors, and that was definitely one of them.