Today I got up to take Smallest to her swimming lesson. I wrapped her up warmly, put on my coat and scarf over my cardigan and shirt, and by the time I got to the car I was sweating. (Yes, I know women are only supposed to glow, but I’m heavily pregnant, OK? I don’t glow. I drip.)
Slightly confused by this, I pressed the thermometer button in the car. To be told it was 19 degrees. Surely not.
So we went to swimming, and she had a great lesson, and on the way back, I dripped some more. Got into the house and told the children that they really wanted to be outside. So they were, for the rest of the afternoon, only coming in to the kitchen to make like a horde of locusts and forage for suitable food for a picnic. In February???
And I could see it doing them good. I could see them unfolding, soaking up the sunlight, the fresh air, the room to move around, to shout, to play. These are the days that home education really works, when you can chuck the timetable out of the window and do something important – give them a childhood. Because playing outside on the first warm sunny day of the year is incredibly important. And as the forecast for tomorrow is for rain, that fresh air is going to have to last them a little while.
I’m just hoping that wasn’t all of summer in one short day.
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