Category Archives: School

A note on school remember lists

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It could be because it’s the last week of term, but I feel like I have a mild form of dementia this week. I’m forgetting all sorts of school-related things. And, boy, do the kids let me know about this!

“Mum, you forgot everything today!” my oldest told me, as he burst through the door yesterday afternoon, the indignance chipping away at the edges of his voice. “My reading book … the zumbathon … money for Tanzania Day.” Never mind the equally long list of things I did remember.

“Well, you are nine now, big boy. It might be time you started remembering some of these things for yourself?” I suggested hopefully. He looked at me aghast, as though I’d proposed chopping him into little bits for dinner. DH glanced up from his chair in the corner, enjoying the distraction from his airplane manuals, and raised an amused eyebrow.

Last week of term and nothing is sticking in my memory

Last week of term and nothing is sticking in my memory

The thing is, there’s just so much to remember, isn’t there? Your child will need: an iPad for Arabic; an oversized white shirt for science; a costume for Book Character Day; a 3D model of the Ruler’s Court (okay, I made the last one up, but I know any mums reading this will relate!).

My friend A, who is frantically busy setting up her own company at the moment, told me she had a chicken bone soaking in vinegar in the kitchen for a science experiment on calcium deficiency, and had just bought plastic juice bottles to make lungs. “Tomorrow he needs recyclable materials to create artwork for the theme ‘a sustainable and happy society’ … and that’s just for the little one. Don’t get me started on the older brother.”

I gave her a wobbly, sympathetic smile, knowing that this is what I’m in for next year.

In our household, having two completely different schools makes the remember list even longer. I’d go so far as to say it adds a bi-polar element to our school situation (the result of a waiting list as long as your arm) – and this morning I found myself cursing my inability to stay on top of things.

Raising money for children with genetic disorders

Raising money for children with genetic disorders

It was Jeans for Genes Day at Son2’s school, necessitating the wearing of denim and a 10dhs donation (which had to be in 10 dirham coins, not a note, as they were going to use the coins to fill the outline of a pair of jeans). A great cause, and I was all for it. We picked out his coolest jeans. He pulled them on, and buttoned up his blue and white stripy school shirt at 7am this morning.

Big mistake – when we get to school, all the other kids are wearing T-shirts with their jeans.

Son2 bursts into noisy, guffawing sobs and runs away. I’m feeling mildy annoyed that he’s having such a dramatic reaction. But then, the teacher goes off to see if there’s a spare T-shirt, and half the class pours out the door like flood water, to stare at my son, who’s hiding round the corner. “A-ha, you’re not meant to be wearing that,” trills one classmate, pointing.

My words, “It doesn’t matter!” fall like rocks in the morning air.

And I feel so bad – so horribly bad – that I go straight home, pick up a T-shirt (his brother’s, another brain freeze) and drive it back to school.

Bring on the Easter holidays! (Now, if someone could just tell me where I put my car keys … )

The school lockdown drill

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“Mummy! There’s going to be actors playing terrorists in school tomorrow!” said my older son, the excitement chipping away at the edges of his voice.

Goodness, I said, my brows knitting together. I knew there was a travelling theatre coming to school soon (I’d sent the money in), but this sounded far too dramatic for a class of imaginative eight and nine year olds.

Further questioning revealed that the school had planned a lockdown drill – something all UAE schools are doing this year, most for the first time. Kind of like a fire drill in reverse: the warning sounds and everyone stays inside.

Today on the curriculum: Hiding practice

Today on the curriculum: Hiding practice

Explaining this to children can be tricky, and you end up mumbling something like, “It’s safest to be outside a building if it’s on fire, and sometimes it’s safest to be inside the building instead.” Pushed into it … “If we were in America there might be a man with a gun.” [their eyes expand like saucers] “But not here …” (lest they suddenly decide they never want to go to school again).

Well, it turned out there were no play-terrorists (over-enthusiastic primary school kids really know how to spin it, don’t they?). And, to be honest, it sounded more like hiding practice as it’s not like they were allowed to pile tables and chairs up against the door or anything. But the novelty factor certainly meant Son1 told me far more about his school day than he usually does – and went to town on the sound effects.

The alarm sounded, he said, demonstrating it loudly with siren-like wailing. And all the children had to huddle in the corner of their classroom, with the lights off. “The head then came round banging on all the doors, kind of pretending he was trying to get in.”

I’m trying to imagine all the children and teachers hunkering silently in darkened classrooms away from closed blinds and locked doors, while the headmaster prowled through the hallways decorated with student art and jiggled doorhandles.

“We made two mistakes,” said Son1. “Ms B forgot to turn the smart board off, and left her phone on her desk.”

“But Ms T’s class made the worst mistake,” he added, the corners of his mouth twitching into a smile.

“What was that?” I asked.

“They forgot to lock the door.”

ACBON Day (and a hot-under-the collar mum)

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Yesterday was ACBON Day. Not my favourite day in Dubai: Air conditioning back on day. And it seems to have arrived earlier this year.

It also coincided with what must surely be the best day in the school year: International Day, the day when everyone is proud to share their culture and traditions with their friends, and mums turn up in bosom-revealing costumes (the European ones, at least).

The children go to school wearing the national colours or traditional dress of their home country, then in the afternoon there’s a huge and colourful, cosmopolitan fair on the playing field.

Hello world!

Hello world!

Some 50 countries were represented out of the 85+ nationalities at the school, and browsing the stalls is always a culinary adventure: yesterday you could nibble on kimchi (from South Korea), Brazilian BBQ meat, a Victoria sponge cake (British), German Halal beer, Spanish paella and so much more, while admiring the Kiwi Haka dance and other performances from all around the world. There was a parade too, and the children had all painted flags that were strung up as décor.

It’s a wonderful afternoon – and you’d think all the parents would agree.

Apparently not so.

She was the first woman I met at the start of my stint selling coupons, for drinks and rides (and by rides, I mean the bouncy castle and slide. The amazing food was all provided by the mums, and was free).

“I want a dirham back,” she demanded. A shadow darkened her face. I couldn’t quite understand why she was so annoyed. Her forehead furrowed, and her eyebrows had hooded over eyes that blazed with anger.

Then her friend came over and wanted 20dhs back (the exchange rate, for those not in the UAE, makes a dirham worth about 18p and 20dhs about £3.50).

Ladies, let it go, I’m thinking. A dirham, really? The whole point of the fair is it’s a fund-raiser for the school, which presumably your children attend.

I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt (in Dubai, if you don’t understand someone’s behaviour, it’s always worth reminding yourself that their background is probably very different from your own – ie, they could be from war-torn Syria, or, if it’s a workman botching something in your home, he’s probably from a poverty-stricken village in rural Bangladesh).

But, no, it didn’t work. Their bling suggested otherwise, and they weren’t polite at all.

I’m looking around at all the hard, hard work so many parents had put into the afternoon – the cooking, baking, decorating, signage, assembling stalls, manning stalls for four hours.

While my co-coupon seller disappeared to ask if we could give refunds, I found myself bristling, then saying, “You know, everyone’s just volunteering here – the money all goes to the school.”

YOUR CHILD … YOUR CHILDREN … WILL BENEFIT, from things like iPads in the classrooms, and playground equipment. Except I didn’t actually say that.

“Aha,” she snapped back. “It goes to the parents.”

And I presume she meant the parents’ committee who’d organised everything – and I wondered, what on earth does she think they’re going to do with the funds?

Spend it all on gin?

Why dress-up days should be outlawed

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First, let me just say that Son2 loves to dress up, and finds it a big thrill to go to school in anything other than his navy-blue shorts and pinstriped, button-up shirt. In his closet, you’ll find plenty of costumes depicting numerous genres, from spiderboy to alien, vampire and terrorist. Yes, you read that correctly: he came downstairs this weekend looking like this:

Erm, DH: What was Santa thinking?

Erm, DH: What was Santa thinking?

But every time the school announces a special theme day, I have to admit my heart sinks a little bit. I can’t sew; if you handed me a piece of fabric I’d have no idea what to do with it; and the prop that would accessorise an outfit perfectly is never just lying around the house. It’s usually buried at the bottom of a cupboard, lost, broken or still in the shop.

And I’ve come to realise that this is a universal problem: there’s my good friend in London who had to come up with “a simple homemade fez” – with a tassel. (“We want the tassels to swirl when the children dance,” the teacher said.) Then there’s the kind commenters on my blog who’ve dressed their child up as a triangle and seriously considered crocheting a pilot’s hat after trawling the mall and finding nothing.

Oh yes, we mums do try when faced with these challenges – because you just know that there will be crafty mothers who got straight onto Pinterest. Not to mention that on, say, Book Character Day, school will be invaded by a mini fictional force made up of Harry Potter, Dr. Seuss, Angelina Ballerina and other favourite storybook characters. The look on your child’s face if their outfit is a laughing stock is enough to make any otherwise sane mum start cutting up the curtains.

I’ve even heard of dads having to get in on the act too, in some cases taking over as costume-deviser extraordinaire, and sewing! Another friend tells me her DH is the go-to person for dress-up days; for an Easter Bonnet parade, he constructed a spring hat with a giant carrot protruding from the top, which we were all still talking about the next year – a pilot by profession, creative genius in his spare time.

In the Circles household, given enough notice, I’m able to dispatch DH to a costume shop in New York on one of his trips here (yes, we cheat, big time!); and he came up trumps last term, with a ghoulish-grey Area 51 costume and mask for the day aliens landed on the playing field at Son2’s school.

The news that today would be African Explorer Day came a week ago, just as the reality of getting back to the grind was hitting, and saw me arguing vehemently with Son2 at 7 this morning over why he couldn’t take that stonking big nerf gun pictured above into class (huntsman, explorer, it was all the same to him).

As we got out of the car, Son2 – donned in hurriedly assembled safari-type garb and wearing binoculars round his neck – got cold feet. No-one was in costume! Mum must have got it wrong! (I hadn’t, it was only for his year). I did wonder for a moment – until, at the gate, we saw a stressed-looking mum with a teary, uniform-clad child, being asked by a teacher if they had anything at home resembling the mishmash my son was wearing. As she headed off (upset boy in tow) to figure it out, I ’m sure she must have wished dress-up days could be outlawed too.

Inside a 9-year-old’s imagination

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Son1 attends an International Baccalaureate (IB) World Continuum School. I have no idea what the ‘world continuum’ bit means, but I do know that there are students enrolled from more than 80 different nationalities, and the importance of diversity and acceptance is hammered home to them.

I have to say, I do enjoy seeing the sea of faces in the playground, and all the myriad shades of skin and hair colour – there are Scandinavian children with the whitest blonde hair, Asian kids with beautiful, dark, almond-shaped eyes and perfect skin, and smiley, dark-haired youngsters from countries such as Iraq and Jordan. Other nations well represented at the school include Germany, France and South Africa.

Four IB programmes are offered, and something that’s quite different from the education I experienced is the focus on presenting their work orally. Besides breeding a new generation of toastmasters, I do think all this speaking in front of the class is instilling a level of confidence in these school kids that’s sure to be valuable in their careers down the line.

A leap of the imagination and you never know what you'll find on board

A leap of the imagination and you never know what you’ll find on board

But it also comes with its fair share of angst. (Being a risk-taker is another key IB ‘principle’, and as my friend put it, if your child isn’t a risk-taker, another system might be better).

Personally, I’ve been really impressed with the IB curriculum, especially by the way it encourages ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking; however, this weekend saw me nervously chewing my lip over Son1’s homework.

The words ‘Prepare an oral presentation (two minutes – not more, not less)’ immediately got my attention – as did the instructions to rehearse the speech, paying attention to clarity of voice, expression, posture and eye contact. Remember, these children are 8, going on 9 – and only cue cards were allowed.

The prompt we used was finding a bottle on the beach with something inside it. Son1 had to continue the story. At first, it was like extracting teeth – he ummed and ahhed, dropped his pencil, half slid off his chair, then ran off to the toilet, his mind a blank. It was only when we hit on the idea of a bottle from the Titanic that his imagination started firing on all cylinders.

Suddenly, his brain synapses went into overdrive. I could almost see his electrically excitable neurons lighting up, and out of his mouth flowed a (rather inspired, I thought) story about raising the Titanic from the seabed. To paraphrase, there was a magic ball in the bottle that was dropped over the shipwreck site, creating enormous waves that caused the Titanic to come to the surface.

“That’s great,” I encouraged, as he really got into the swing of it. “And was the ship in one piece?” (Yes) “As good as new, really?” “And what about all the passengers? Were they all brought back to life and reunited with their families?” Clearly, I needed a happy ending to history’s best-known maritime tragedy.

“Oh no, mummy!” he said, his eyes shining with story-telling glee. “They had blue skin, and their faces were falling off. They were zombies! There was a message with a handprint of blood, telling me I had to shoot them. All of them.”

If I do manage to make a writer of him, I think it’s safe to say his genre will be fantasy sci-fi.

Inside the KHDA’s (quirky, Google-like) inner sanctum

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If you’re a mum of school-aged children in Dubai, you’ll have heard of the KHDA inspectors. You’ll realise that if you don’t want to know what ranking your child’s school has received (unacceptable, acceptable, good or outstanding), you’d better keep your fingers in your ears at the school gates.

You might also have noticed that all the stops are pulled out when the KHDA calls. Stories abound of equipment arriving just before inspections and promptly disappearing afterwards; extra teachers – even painters – being brought in the week before; and students being drilled on how to put up their hands (left if they know the answer, right if they don’t).

From the outside, Dubai’s regulatory authority for education looks like a fairly ordinary office building, out in the desert.

From the outside, Dubai’s regulatory authority for education looks like a fairly ordinary government building, out in the desert.

How prevalent these tricks are is unknown, but I can vouch for the fact that when Son1’s school was inspected earlier this year, I agreed to spend a lunch-hour sitting under a palm tree reading to any child who’d listen – just as the inspectors, who look for parent engagement as a sign of a quality school, happened to be in the vicinity.

So who is this body that has ALL THIS power? Whose reports cause Dubai’s schools to go in and out of fashion, and grants them the right to raise (already expensive) school fees? Today I got the chance to find out (more in the Q&A below). Even if you don’t live in the UAE, or have no children, keep scrolling: my visit to the Dubai government’s amazing KHDA-plex in Academic City was truly illuminating, and anyone would be forgiven for thinking they’d actually stumbled across Google HQ.

On the inside, you discover the KHDA offers staff and visitors a crazy array of perks, from yoga classes, kung fu and tai chi to a chef who makes delicious food and entertaining spaces like this one.

On the inside, you discover the KHDA offers staff and visitors a crazy array of perks, from yoga classes, kung fu and tai chi to a chef, who makes delicious food, and stylish hospitality spaces like this one.

Right in the middle of the main concourse, you’ll find this piano – which anyone can play, and everyone stops to listen to.

Right in the middle of the main concourse, you’ll find this piano – which anyone can play, and everyone stops to listen to.

Just keep in mind this is a government regulator, a department of education … because it gets better and better.

A very quick peek in here revealed a phone charger point. Just as quirky was the yellow budgerigar in a little aviary upstairs.

A very quick peek in here revealed a phone charger point. Just as quirky was the yellow budgerigar in a cage upstairs.

I’m not quite sure what goes on in here, but it was called the water room. Next, we walked past two office-workers in a glass room running a call centre. “They’ve been holed up in here for a while,” our guide told us. “They don’t know it yet, but things are being re-designed so that they’ll soon be sitting in the middle of a forest.”

I’m not quite sure what goes on in here, but it was called the water room. Next, we walked past two office-workers in a glass room running a call centre. “They’ve been holed up in there for a while,” our guide told us. “They don’t know it yet, but things are being re-designed so that they’ll soon be sitting in the middle of a forest.”

Treadmill workstations are located all over the building. These facilities allow staff to work while exercising, and they can do presentations from exercise bikes. There’s no claiming you don’t have the right shoes: one of the treadmills is high-heels friendly.

Treadmill workstations are located all over the building. These facilities allow staff to work while exercising, and they can do presentations from exercise bikes. There’s no claiming you don’t have the right shoes, either: one of the treadmills is high-heels friendly.

The Thrive activities schedule offers free stillness classes, hatha yoga, ashtanga yoga and Chinese martial arts. On the fifth floor, there’s a spa bathroom, with hanging crystals.

The Thrive activities schedule offers free stillness classes, hatha yoga, ashtanga yoga and Chinese martial arts. On the fifth floor, there’s a spa bathroom, with hanging crystals.

A brand new feature is the English/Arabic smart-signs that ‘nudge’ people to climb stairs instead of using the lifts. The high-tech mounted screens display the exact calorie-burn for each stairway and give motivational health messages. KHDA workers can then track, ‘gamify’ and share their stair-climbing performance using a smartphone app. “The only better stairs I’ve seen are at Dewa (Dubai Electricity & Water Authority),” our guide said. “They’re surrounded by mirrors, and by the time you get to the top you look like Kate Moss.”

A brand new feature is the English/Arabic smart-signs that ‘nudge’ people to climb stairs instead of using the lifts. The high-tech mounted screens display the exact calorie-burn for each stairway and give motivational health messages. KHDA workers can then track, ‘gamify’ and share their stair-climbing performance using a smartphone app.
“The only better stairs I’ve seen are at Dewa (Dubai Electricity & Water Authority),” our guide added. “They’re surrounded by mirrors, and by the time you get to the top you look like Kate Moss.”

Gorgeous works of art are everywhere – oh, and more exercise equipment if you fancy hanging around.

Walls are adorned with gorgeous works of art – oh, and here’s some more exercise equipment if you fancy hanging around.

On the way out, after writing a message on a tablet that was projected onto a TV screen for all to read, I noticed this rug. This is the morning rug, welcoming visitors in numerous different languages. At 12 noon, it’s changed to a ‘Good afternoon’ rug.

After writing a farewell message on a tablet that was projected onto a TV screen for all to read, I noticed this enormous rug on the way out. This is the morning rug, welcoming visitors in different languages. At 12 noon, it’s changed to a ‘Good Afternoon’ rug.

“We place great importance on wellness at KHDA, introducing numerous healthy initiatives for our staff,” said Hind al-Mualla, the authority’s chief of engagement. “We believe that both health and wellbeing are a vital part of happiness.”

I was sold. I asked for a job. I’d wanted to work in the civil service in the UK years ago, perhaps this was a second chance. And when they told me they offer a ‘working-mum contract’ with hours that fit around school, I was ready to rush home and dust-off my CV.

“We don’t accept CVs,” smiled the director-general. “Send us a selfie.” And he wasn’t joking: To apply, you need to download KHDA Connect from the Apple app store, and tell them about yourself by text, audio or video.

Q&A

What is the KHDA?
The Knowledge and Human Development Authority is Dubai’s regulatory authority for education, responsible for the growth, direction and quality of private education and learning in Dubai.

When was it established and why?
In 2007, the World Bank published a report on private education in the Middle East, The Road Not Travelled, which inspired the KHDA – established in the same year – to follow its guidelines and set up an inspection regime.

Has it made progress in raising standards in Dubai’s schools?
Yes. This has been a challenge for various reasons, not least because of the speed at which the education system is growing (this year has seen 11 new schools opening in the emirate); the large number of different curriculums (16, including British, International and Indian) and the hugely varying price points (you can pay up to AED55,000 / US$15,000 in annual tuition for a 3-year-old; and as much as AED103,200 / US$28,000 for Year 13).

After five years of inspections, the percentage of pupils attending good or outstanding institutions has risen from 30 per cent to 51 per cent. “Every year, we raise the bar,” says director-general Dr Abdulla al-Karam.

If schools do well, they are allowed to raise their fees.

How fast are admissions rising?
Enrolment is rising at 7-8 per cent a year, and not just among expats; over the past decade, the number of Emiratis in private education has risen from 34 per cent to 57 per cent.

What is being done about the waiting-list problem?
While some ‘waiting lists’ serve a marketing purpose, the better schools do tend to have limited space and lengthy waiting lists (which you have to pay to get on). The situation is improving as more schools open, although with Dubai’s rapid growth, it’s hard for services such as health and education to keep up. This year, an extra 23,000 new school places were created. As parents were unsure if some of these schools would open in time for Sept 2014, the number of requests for tranfers is currently high.

Silently stealing luggage space

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My DH took the children away last week. I couldn’t go because of work, so I (rather forlornly) waved them off to Beirut, where their grandparents live.

It was the first time I’d had to ‘let the boys go’, and I felt strangely untethered, as though gravity had disappeared – until I rediscovered how much extra time there is when you’re the only person in the house (things stay exactly where you leave them, it’s crazy!)

Our nanny did the children’s packing, but when I got home from work, DH was doing some pruning.

xxxxxx

Don’t forget their toothbrushes – and the class gorilla! (hehe)

Now, when I pack the cases, I’m pretty thorough. If we got stuck on a desert island, we could be self-sufficient thanks to my packing (which is sometimes, I admit, excessive – but then I’ve got nearly nine years’ of experience of travelling with children who create laundry like nobody’s business).

Men, I’ve realised, view packing quite differently. DH had thrown out several T-shirts; when I tried to put baseball caps in, I had to argue their case; and as for taking suntan lotion, you’d think I was attempting to sneak a brick into the suitcase. (“There’ll be some there,” was DH’s viewpoint. “Just take it, in case,” I replied.)

So I did have to secretly smile when DH’s hand-luggage only plans were stymied by the class bear. The mascot is actually a gorilla – at least a foot tall. As Son2 left school clutching the stuffed toy – hardly able to believe his luck that he was the first to take him away – DH must have groaned inwardly at the gorilla’s surprisingly large size.

At the back to school night, another dad had quipped, “If he’s excess baggage, he’s not going.” But, given the jet set life of a travelling toy in an international school, you just know that the class gorilla has probably scuba-dived in the Maldives; made it to Hong Kong Disneyland; not to mention enjoyed weekend trips to Oman and Turkey.

So how was school? Lethal

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If you know and love the author Liane Moriarty, you’ll be pleased to hear she’s nailed it yet again. I recently finished her latest book, Big Little Lies, and it’s a brilliant story about parents behaving badly. It’s also the funniest book about murder and domestic abuse you’ll ever read.

Moriarty has a knack for creating characters who are so believable they could easily be people you know at the school gates: there’s Madeline, a force to be reckoned with; the beautiful Celeste; and Jane, who’s young, single and struggling to make ends meet. Then we meet the hot-shot mums with high-powered jobs; the yogi mum; and the “Blond Bobs” – the ‘Mum prefects’ who rule the school like it’s their religion.

If this book had been written by Agatha Christie, it would have been called “The Kindergarten Murder”

If this book had been written by Agatha Christie, it would have been called “The Kindergarten Murder”

What all these women have in common is that they drive truck-like cars, and take their mothering very seriously: “Their frantic little faces. Their busy little bottoms strutting into the school in their tight gym gear … Eyes fixed on the mobile phones held in the palms of their hands like compasses.”

The cover art for the book (called Little Lies in the UK) depicts a large, multicoloured lollipop exploding into a thousand pieces, and it illustrates perfectly how the sugar-coated lies that people hide behind are smashed into smithereens.

The story centres around Pirriwee Public, a beautiful little beachside primary school where children are taught that ‘sharing is caring.’ So how has the annual School Trivia Night ended in a full-blown riot? Sirens are wailing. People are screaming. The principal is mortified. And one parent is dead.

But who? And who was responsible for this terrible deed?

The book then jumps back six months and cuts back and forth between the characters, revealing complex family problems and putting friendships and marriage under the microscope. Written with impeccable comic timing, the narrative is peppered with parents’ voices commenting cryptically on the root cause of the ‘tragedy’: the French nanny? An erotic book club? Head lice?

Considering everything that is tackled in this book (bullying, domestic violence, date rape, dealing with ex-husbands and more), the plot should not have worked as well as it does. Moriarty pulls it off brilliantly, and I finished the novel wishing I could instantly forget it so I could immediately read about the misbehaving inhabitants of Pirriwee all over again.

Back to school: The Most Confusing and Complicated Time of the Year

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I always find the start of the new school year really perplexing. It’s like everything I knew about their classmates, routines, PE and swimming days and library sessions has suddenly become obsolete, and must be pieced back together again like a giant, 3D puzzle.

It’s as though there’s a software update for the hard-drive in my head, and downloading the update not only mysteriously erases useful data like pick-up times, early finish time and the teacher’s name, but also makes the desktop in my brain look different. Nothing is intuitive anymore. Do I click here for homework? What days do I send PE kit in? Or does he wear it to school? Which class is my car pool mum’s child in now? And where the hell is the new classroom anyway?

"Updates are installing. Do not turn off your brain"

“Updates are installing. Do not turn off your brain”

It doesn’t help that we’ve got two schools following different curriculums on the go, so it all feels a bit bi-polar, and I haven’t had time to study all the emails and newsletters coming out of both schools in detail.

Then there’s the mixed-up emotional side – and this one has really hit me this year. I used to be one of those women who, on the first day back, would skip down the supermarket aisle celebrating my freedom. Now, to my amazement, I’ve turned into someone who wishes it could be summer f-o-r-e-v-e-r, and is even at risk of shedding tears at the school gate. Although which camp I’m in depends on the day.

My DH tells me I’m no good at change, but I’d correct that to say transitions. I’m fine once I get into the new routine, but that unsettled period before it’s established bothers me, and the worry comes out in odd ways. At the grocery store the other day, I couldn’t find the pâté. They’d either moved it again, or it hadn’t arrived on the boat this week. I was talking to the nice man in the pork section, who showed me where it was. “Why isn’t it where it always is,” I asked. He shot me a sympathetic, pitiful look. I think he knew I wasn’t talking about the pâté.