Julie's Boggle

So our glorious summer holiday is over, and with it our days of freedom from school timetables…

It’s now two weeks since Jonathan started at school and although we’re still coming down slowly, the new term is well and truly under way.

The biggest difference for Jonathan is not having any days off.  His nursery slots which covered 2½ days a week meant that he was used to doing some “full days” away from home, but the relentlessness of the current 5-day week is definitely wearing him down.

The school day begins at 8:55 (in line with UK office hours of 9:00 – 17:00)  when the head teacher rings a big clangy bell in the playground for everyone to line up in their classes, and pick-up time is 15:00.  During these 6 hours, along with assembly, they have 4 blocks of “lesson” time allocated for various activities and an hour given over to lunch.

Apparently the Reception class get to do a lot of playing, and for the first couple of days Jonathan was very keen.  He wasn’t at all interested in taking the shorter days offered to us for the first, abbreviated school week, but by the time we got to the end of week 2, all he wanted was to come home earlier.  By the time week 3 started, all he wanted was a day at home.  Poor lad.

I can’t help comparing what Jonathan is experiencing with what I had as a child in SA.  I didn’t start until I was 18 months older than Jon is now, and for the first 2 years we only did 4½ hour days.  What is realistically added to a 4- or 5-year-old’s academic experience by making them stay at school for 6 hours every day?  I’m sure a more gradual introduction would be more helpful.

Okay, rant over…

Jonathan’s school is closer than his nursery, so we have more flexibility in how we get there.  Conveniently, one of the available routes is also one of the very few almost-level stretches that exist in Durham, so Jon gets the opportunity to use his scooter on our daily commute and he does rather enjoy that.  The 1.2 mile walk, done this way, takes about 25 minutes and when the weather is good it can be a very pleasant part of the day. (Pushing Jess in the pushchair without Jon, I can shave another 5 minutes off that time.)

Back in the holidays, when I was thinking ahead to the weekly school routine, I had certainly not planned on spending 90+ minutes of every day getting Jon to and from school.  However, the traffic outside the school is hellish, aggravated at the moment by an intense set of roadworks – just moved up to outside the school gate! – taking out half of the road and necessitating a traffic-light-controlled one-way system.  Result: for as long as this lasts, Jon and I are working on getting fitter.

At the moment a lot of the little ones are suffering with tiredness, and it does feel hard watching from the sidelines feeling a bit helpless as the system crunches over them.  But the teachers are relatively sympathetic to their plight and we’re watching keenly to see if some “breather” days will help out.

In the meanwhile, I think for at least some of the time, our little guy is enjoying being one of the school-going gang and we’re hoping he’ll make some friends to help him settle in more quickly!

In many ways, the summer break we’ve had this year feels like the most complete holiday I’ve had in a long while.  To be sure, there were some little stresses at the start — like the too-short night spent in a hotel in Dubai, en route to South Africa, which involved minimal sleep all round — but that feels like an insignificant complaint compared with the many ways other things went smoothly.

Confusingly, it was actually winter in South Africa, where we spent 4 of our 5 weeks away, but realistically there were minimal differences between the “summer” we were leaving behind, and Durban’s winter days if you discount the hours of daylight.

Overall, our time in South Africa (photos here) was a wonderful break from the daily grind of running a family during term-time.  Not only were we surrounded by lovely family and friends with whom there was lots to catch-up, we were very well looked after in terms of food and accommodation.  We had grandparents on hand to help with keeping the children entertained and there was lots and lots of time for relaxing over good meals in enjoyable company.

Tom completed a two-week placement at a local church while we were there and he found that to be an interesting and enriching experience which saw him getting involved with an area very close to where he grew up, yet which he knew nothing about.

Once we arrived back in Durham, feeling a little depleted from another set of sleep-deprived aeroplane flights, but otherwise refreshed, there was just one slightly-stressed day left to unpack and repack before we jumped in the car and drove the 500 km south to London.

This part of our holiday was not as easy as SA on the catering front, given that we were largely looking after ourselves in this regard(!) but thanks again to generous friends we had a lovely house to spread out in, replete with all the baby-gear we needed and lots of toys.

Time was tight for fitting in all the people we wanted to see, even with a number of them being away on holiday as well.  On top of that we had hoped to get in some good park visits but the weather defeated us there on a number of days.  Fortunately we had one day that was sunny enough for Jon to have a “big paddle” in the Ravenscourt Park paddling pool.   (The day before we’d got as far as taking his shoes off when the heavens opened!)  He loved it.  “It’s cold, but I don’t mind.”

All importantly, we got to see most of the babies that had arrived since we were last in London, and Jon got to spend time with many of his Shepherds Bush friends, re-establishing connections and refreshing young memories.

As August came to an end, we at last we made our way back to Durham, leaving one last week at home before school started.  A last few days to chill before school term (and another placement for Tom) began and fresh commitments started to fill our diaries once more.