Back to School

Have just waved off daughter 1, looking bizarrely smart in her school uniform, and almost unrecognisable from the bare-legged teenager trailing scarves and jingling ankle bracelets who has flip-flopped around for the last six weeks. Surreal. Daughters 2 and 3 don't go back until tomorrow, leaving us until 4pm today to assemble their uniforms, PE kit and pencil case contents and do something suitably celebratory for the Last Day of the Holidays. Last night was our traditional end of holiday dinner, which always consists of the children's very favourite food (gorgeous fillet steak from the farm shop down the road, and chips) consumed over an increasingly nostalgic and rose-tinted analysis of the summer. By the time we reach pudding history has been re-written, and no-one remembers the heated argument over crablines in Staithes, the squabbles in the car over space/CD choice/ having the windows open or my daily rants over unmade beds and uncleared breakfast dishes, and we're all in agreement that it's been the Best Holiday Ever.


So, today is a picnic in the woods, and cake in our favourite National Trust teashop. Tomorrow is Back to Work.