Blog first, eat after, may be a bad strategy. All I can think about is food! Except for 'Super Gran', who remembers her? She is alive and living in Seaton. I see this little old lady nearly every day on the road to and from school, she has an upright, metal framed, push along shopping trolley. She wears a pink coat with matching pink lips and cheeks. She wears a hat that is a cross between a beret and a squashed pork pie, and she plods along with a look of mischief in her eyes. I always have to look behind me as she passes to see if she jumps in the air and clicks her heels together behind me. I am sure that woman leads a double life!
Anyway, I was at school today with year 2 again. I had a great time as usual and am heartened to find that I struggle more with how to work the photocopier, than I do with working with the children.
It's no good, I have got to go and eat............ yummy left over stinky curry which has intensified in spice and flavour. I shall stink but I don't care!
When I left school this lunch time I caught sight of the tail end of the key stage 1 Welly Club, disappearing into the school woods. How fantastic! My daughter loves this club. It is run by her previous reception class teachers so she gets to catch up with them, whilst eating her pack lunch (a once a week novelty as she normally has school dinners), sitting in a log pile circle. Then they tromp around the woods in their wellies, playing hide and seek and 'it' amongst other adventures and discoveries.
I am glad in this instance to say, that I do think she knows how lucky she is! She loves school to the point of obsession. Each morning she is a bursting with energy and filled with the delight and excited anticipation of what lies ahead. What a great way to be! She looks exhausted when she bundles out of the classroom door at the end of the day with her arms full of bags, coats, drawings and lolly sticks. She really only knows how to live in the present. At this age, her whole life is making moments, and I can't remember with my son, who is older, at what age they start to reflect more on past events, and think more wistfully about things that lie ahead.
Talking of him, yesterday his year group (5), all went down to the beach to tidy it with Meg the Ranger from the nature reserve. After Multimedia Club, he and his friend returned for tea and told me all about the condoms and syringes they found! How awful. My son said he didn't know what they were, they were warned that they might find some, so he had been looking out for those round crunchy things you sometimes eat with curry! In normal circumstances I would have explained in a matter of fact way, what they actually are, but because his friend was with us, I just did that silly mum laugh, and briskly skipped the conversation on to bikeability.
He has been taking his bike to school every day this week, and is expected to be a fully roadworthy cyclist by Friday. He has already cycled on the roads by himself, to the nature reserve classroom and back, he cycled to Scouts and back, and has managed to get to and from school each day. My heart has been leaping, and if I had any nails they would have been chewed off! He, on the other hand,  has a grin bigger than the cheshire cat's to be out on the open road and have some freedom. It makes me so happy to see him enjoying his independence so much, but it is terrifying at the same time.