Town Mouse

Heartfelt thanks

LAST Friday, we received an 11th-hour invitation to say that there was space for one of the children at school this week. We leapt at the offer.

The return to a morning routine for the past five days has been strange for us all. One striking difference from the distantly familiar rituals (which used to begin with the inevitable struggle to extract the children from bed) is the eagerness to get off to school. It used to be my role to stand beside the front door and fulminate at the number of things that needed to be done in the minutes after we ought to have left. This week, however, roles have been reversed. Now, it’s the child, dressed in full uniform, with satchel on their back and packed lunch in hand, who waits irritably on the threshold asking why nothing is ready and complaining that they might be late. One morning, they lost patience completely and set off alone.

Attitudes to school have changed, too. In preparation for the last day, the child composed a thank-you card for their teacher. It’s richly deserved for all the work the teacher has done this week and over the previous months. The astonishing thing, however, is that it was written unprompted. JG