Crazy summer days

Hands up all those who are looking forward to September…

The summer holidays – don’t you just love ‘em? Except they’re a mixed blessing aren't they…

Drifting back in mind, as I tend to do if not careful, I was thinking of the days when the children were at school and the Summer Holidays loomed on the horizon. It was an interesting cocktail of emotions as I seem to recall.

Part hooray! and part help!

Nice to have them around, but what to do with them?

On one hand no more getting a crowd of reluctant students out of the door first thing every morning. I would be imagining how lovely it would be not to get up for the school run to spend more time with the children.

On the other hand, they’d be ricocheting round the house all day. And they were bound to be getting up to all kinds of things behind my back… I can prove this: see April 2017 blog ‘Don’t Tell Your Mother’.

 And I knew from experience it would be exhausting trying to entertain them, keep them out of the food cupboards and get them to clear up after themselves.

I told myself 'They will entertain themselves'. That was the problem...

Looking back, I have to say I wasn’t the kind of mum who had lots of bright ideas up her sleeve for the six-week stretch. But the kids didn’t need any help from me to find things to do. The less I tried to entertain them, the more they  enjoyed themselves. Which was how we ended up with a highly dangerous complex of underground tunnels in the garden one year. How Kate got the scar on her stomach from leaping off the shed roof. And how they all managed to exit the upper storey of the house via the bathroom window without me noticing a thing.

I try not to beat myself up too much. I did my best. So easy to see now how I could have done it better. Anyway, they seem to have turned out OK. *  

On balance, I preferred to have them at home.

And now the summer break doesn’t make a lot of difference to me, except that I might get to see some of the grandchildren on a week day. And all the roads are madly busy with other peoples kids being taken out places.

We are already halfway through the hols. It goes so quickly now the brood are no longer underfoot for the duration. Most of them are in the thick of family life with their own broods, and good luck to them if their children take after them.

Hang in there, you parents, it’ll soon be September, enjoy it while you can. Soon comes the school run, the lost bits of uniform, the missing pencil case, the PE kit that got forgotten…

*Understatement. They are all exceptionally wonderful. In case any of them read this.