My Summer Highlights

Hello, thank you for dropping in, especially if you have come via Amy at Love Made My Home.  Today I am joining in Five On Friday and if you have time, do hop over there and see what everyone else has been up to this week. 

For the last twenty-three years my life has been regulated by the rhythm of the school year and as the Best Beloved is a teacher, that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.  It's a peculiar rhythm, and I know that many people feel that teachers enjoy a lot of time off, but the reality is much more complicated than that. However, what is true is that teachers have a good stretch of time away from school in the summer, about six weeks here in the UK, which gives them a chance to release the tension from their minds and bodies, to stretch out their limbs and their horizons and, more prosaically, to tackle all the tasks they put off during termtime.  (In my case, it also meant that I had the best possible school holiday childcare!)

 

During the second half of August I noticed that many bloggers were referring to the onset of autumn and honestly, it practically made me weep with frustration: as far as I am concerned, it can't be autumn during the SUMMER holidays!  These weeks are very precious to me, a time when I have thoughtful, relaxed Holiday Husband who shops and cooks while I am at work (and while I am not) rather than the uptight, blinkered, tired chap who I look after during termtime.  The first week of the holiday is always tricky for us as while I can feel the metaphorical weights lift from my shoulders almost immediately and am desperate to kick up my heels, he unfurls slowly, a little each day.  It takes him about a week to adjust and fully relax into our holiday pattern - for although he is not at work, of course there is a pattern. 

He returned to school at the beginning of this week and we are back in our usual termtime routine now, but still lingering is the glow of summer, and I am reluctant to let it go.  So, as a final hurrah, here are five special things about this year's summer break.

1.  Eggs for breakfast

During termtime our weekday breakfast is always cereal but during the school holidays, every morning the Best Beloved cooks eggs for breakfast, either boiled or poached.  It's a very fine way to begin the day - and no, I am not too old for soldiers, buttered and carefully cut to dipping size.  After I have scooped out every last bit of deliciousness, I turn over the empty shell and bash a hole in it with my spoon so that no witches will be able to use it as a boat and put to sea to cause trouble for sailors.  For some reason, the Best Beloved thinks this is ridiculous!

 
2.  Lunch in the garden

If we were both at home and lunchtime and it wasn't raining, we took our lunch outside and ate together in the garden.  We can never do this on termtime weekdays so it felt like an enormous treat, lingering and chatting over enormous mugs of tea.  We had plenty of bees in the garden this year but very few butterflies, so I was delighted when a single red admiral chose to join us one day and basked in the sunshine on the brick wall...upside-down!

3.  Our family holiday

This summer was different from all the summers we have had before as the Best Beloved and I spent a lot of time together on our own: The Mathematician flew away across the sea in the middle of August to spend a year working before she returns to university in September 2017, and before she went she spent several weeks visiting family and friends and holidaying in Wales, London, Hampshire and Italy.  Consequently, the time we spent with her, and together with her sister, felt very precious.  Our week's holiday in Cornwall and The Scillies was so wonderful (thank you, sunshine) and I don't know when our family will all holiday together again. 

 

4.  The Shrewsbury Folk Festival

 

For the eighth time, we went to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival and were transported to a parallel world, one full of colour and music where everyone seems to be friendly, accepting and kind.  For four days we lived in this happy bubble, untouched by the reality of the world outside the West Mid Showground.  We watched people dance, listened to bands play, drank beer (him) and cocktails (me!) in the sunshine, stayed up into the wee small hours every night and I wore flowers in my hair.  Although we spent a fair amount of lovely time with The Teacher, who was dancing there, for the first time we had no teenagers with us and it was different - I have explained to the Best Beloved that he is now responsible for chatting to me and, equally important, for listening to me.  He is a bit shocked! 

 

 

 

5.  A Declaration

 

We caught a bit of Desert Island Discs on the radio one day in the car.  Do you know it?  A celebrity guest chooses eight pieces of music which s/he would take if cast away on a desert island.  I would find it extremely difficult to narrow my selection down to eight, so I asked the Best Beloved to choose one song which he would take with him - not necessarily the only one, but one of several.  He chose Follow You, Follow Me by Genesis and when I asked him why, he said, "It's about the ups and downs of a relationship; it's about commitment; it's about us."  My jaw fell on the floor.  He is not prone to expressing his feelings on any subject and is usually as romantic as a cabbage, but these words just tripped out of his mouth really easily!  He looked at me knowingly and said, "That's it.  I'm an emotional husk now."  We laughed, and I didn't push my luck any further, but I have played this song an awful lot over the last ten days.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9zj11gf9Qk

 

 



I just couldn't bring myself to join in Five On Friday last week because the summer holiday wasn't over and I wanted to squeeze out of it every last drop of relaxed happiness that I could.  I am almost ready for autumn, and of course, as I am an astronomical kind of gal, that won't begin until the equinox on 22nd September, but in the meantime, the weather is kind and I am stretching out in my summer glow.

 

Please do pop over to read Amy's post because it's very special this week and has made my eyes very green.

 

See you soon.

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x