Let’s do this together

I was just having my first coffee of the day and reading the papers lying on my bed, when The Dark Lord came back through the front door, 20 minutes after leaving for school yesterday morning.

I quickly ran back into my office and pretended I was working before she came steaming up the stairs and announced, “I’m not going in today – it’s a health and wellbeing day, and we’re supposed to be in PE kit.”

I could have kicked myself – I’d forgotten all about it when the letter came from her teacher.

I apologised for not warning her, and accepted all responsibility. Although it wasn’t entirely my fault she couldn’t go in wearing her school kit, nobody actually knows where it is.

“Look I’m sorry, OK, but you can’t miss your lessons just because you’re not in shorts,” I tried to reason with her. “Just wear a hoodie and trackies with your blazer and go back to school. It’s a health and wellbeing day – not a torture students day.”

But teenagers don’t see it that way, and she wailed, “I’m the ONLY one not wearing my kit, which I hate, so I’m not wearing it anyway, even if I could find it.”

I tried to get my head round this particular problem, but it was no good, my rational brain just could not compute such extreme gymnastics. The irony of a wellbeing day causing this much trauma was not lost on me, so I emailed her teacher quickly before she got into trouble.

He replied, “Tell her not to worry. It was too much to expect any of our students to come in wearing just their games kit as requested, so basically everyone is wearing exactly what they like!”

The Dark Lord did eventually go back to school just as her first lesson started but wearing a combination of board shorts and a huge oversized hoodie.

I worried about her all day, as she hates to look like the odd one out, but when she came home, she’d forgotten all about the hysterics.

“Yeah, it was cool,” she shrugged. “They should do PE day more often.”

■ Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.

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Yours, Siobhan