New school shoes, tinkling into the wind & eeking out every minute of the day
Well I don’t think we could have crammed more into our last day of the summer holidays. We decided to sleep in the fields at the bottom of our house on Saturday night. Inca had been desperate to camp all summer long and Atlas wanted to see the deer but we just hadn’t managed to find the time, so we scrubbed and popped on our jammies, carried our tent and sleeping bags over the fields and set up camp for the night. We gazed at the stars and found all of our star signs, we played dobble, drank gin (well some of us did) and cuddled up whilst reciting scary stories of the ‘Ruthvoes beast’. We slept terribly with grass sticking through the groundsheet into our backs but it was special to wake up all together with the sunrise and hot foot it back home for some warm croissants.
After breakfast we cracked open a tie-dye kit that Inca had for her birthday, another thing we sadly didn’t make the time for through the holidays. Atlas splodged apricot, indigo and dark cherry inks on his t-shirt whilst Inca neatly dotted some white socks with fuschia and herbal tea green. I’m not the biggest fan of a tie-dye t-shirt but they were thrilled with the outcome and can’t wait to wear them. Despite Atlas’s best efforts I didn’t allow him to wear his multi-colour t-shirt to school this morning.
After some ‘arthur glass’ as we call it, that’s what Inca called ‘arts and crafts’ until a few years ago and now its stuck and I can’t let it go, we popped up the road on a new walk to the most breath taking cove. We plodded along, picking blackberries and spotting sea birds and Atlas delighted at tinkling into the wind on a precarious cliff top. We ran down hills, sat on cliff edges eating bananas and soreen and breathed the last of the summer sea air.
After a lazy lunch of cucumber from Lynne up the lane and tomatoes from Dzintra down the road all slumped on the blanket in the garden, we set about with some house jobs. Sealing the front stone work with better lime pointing, cutting the grass, which took more than ten empties of the mower it was so long, and planting out some new veg seeds. After back to school bolognese we checked the new shoes fit, squeezing their little toes into tight leather is no easy feat after a summer spent bare foot. They looked so smart, both with their knickers and pants on their head whilst they tried on their shoes before bath time. Grandma and Grandpa called them whilst they were all soapy and sudsy in the tub, they made faces at each other and told them about their day, they wished them luck for the first day of school and said goodnight. Pyjamas on and tucked up in the big bed to read stories about Angelina Ballerina (Atlas’s choice) and The Secret History of Fairies ~ Inca’s favourite fairy almanac. We made cards to thank each other for ‘the best summmmmeeerrr’ and rubbed noses goodnight. I cried a little bit as I tucked them in and went back to work painting wrapping paper for this weekend’s market. I’m completely useless at going back to school, I always have been. Somehow it feels worse as an adult, they don’t tell you about that do they? I’m not sure who ‘they’ are but I feel duped by someone for not preparing me for the heart wrenching departure of the summer holidays.
And just like that off they trotted back into school, shyly smiling at faces they haven’t seen in weeks and trying to remember where to put their lunchboxes. I cried again when I got home. Having spent every minute of the summer with two little people at my heels, following me from the toilet, to the washing machine, into big red and back again it’s horribly quiet and lonely. They’ll be home again soon and back on my heels and I can’t wait to feed them and bath them and kiss them until they snuffle and snore to sleep.