First Days Of The Holidays

The first days of the school holidays have a magic all their own. Even though I am working and not on holiday myself, the shift in routine that the arrival of the school summer holidays brings, is delightfully welcome - the daily morning scramble to evict a reluctant teenager from the bed to which he was equally reluctant to retire, only hours before, is gone; those dreaded last minute interrogations before leaving the house, "What have you done with my ..... ?"(supply "physics book", "chemistry homework", "rowing kit", "water bottle", "tie" as applicable) no longer figure; I no longer have to keep one eye on the clock in the afternoons when I have to make the three quarters of an hour round trip of the school run; there is the delightful but also slightly disconcerting frisson of unstructured days to fill differently.

When my sister and I were small we had an engaging Ladybird Storybook entitled "The First Day Of The Holidays". One of those ones told in sing-song rhyme for small persons'  easy reading. It was about two penguins, slightly unimaginatively named "Pen" and "Gwen". I expect my mother still has it squirrelled away in the loft, at home. As far as I recall, Pen and Gwen were asked by their mother to help pick and / or shell peas on the first day of the long summer holidays. Pea-picking and pea-shelling being too much like hard work, Pen and Gwen decide to look for alternative entertainment and go off for a joy-ride on a tempting and conveniently located, shiny, new motorbike. Initially all goes swimmingly and they whizz off down winding country lanes with the sun on their backs and a summer breeze in their feathers but inevitably the escapade ends in disaster and they come a cropper on a sharp bend and end up in the ditch! (Ladybird Storybooks were always hugely moral - bad behaviour always did you no good! Anyone remember the naughty kittens, "Smoke and Fluff"?!) 

I rather liked shelling peas although we never grew any for me to pick when I was a child and I've never longed to ride a motorbike. But the delicious sense of adventure that the break in routine offers by the arrival of the school summer holidays, even these days, when the school holidays are H's, not mine I can easily identify with and it's good.

So this first week of school holidays, when the weather has been glorious, every bit as good as Pen and Gwen had it, we have not stolen a motorbike and ridden off over the Berkshire Downs (tempting though that might be!) but we have enjoyed small and holidayish delights nonetheless such as:

spending time outside in the sunshine whenever possible - away from the computer screen and anything electronic apart from a camera;

"reading lunches" in the garden - H and I often read together over lunch in the school holidays and in the garden on a hot sunny day, it's a perfect interlude in the middle of the day;

evening walks in the sun under fabulously clear blue skies, watching and trying to photograph the swallows dipping and wheeling like miniature Spitfires over the crest of the hill that rises from the fields below, as they gather easy meals of flighty evening insects. Photographng them is not easy. H did better than me as he is quicker and has a better eye but these pics are my best efforts;

eating local ice cream in biscuity waffle cones from the farm shop; no pics, I am afraid - too difficult to wield ice cream and camera at the same time!;

picking flowers that are now covering the lime trees down the road in scented clouds to dry and make lime-flower tea.

What small things do you delight in when the holidays, school or otherwise, come?

Wishing you happy moments in a sunny week!

E x