Simple pleasures (by Lesley)

Play time after school

These days I am filled with delight at finding pleasure in what may be considered mundane tasks - walking the girls to the school bus in the snow, meeting the girls as they come back from the bus in the snow, watching BB-the-dog meet the girls with yelps and bounds as they come back from the bus in the snow, returning from dropping the girls at the bus to do 15 minutes of tai qi (in the snow) followed by a large, strong cappuccino.....not in the snow. Honestly, it's hard to put into words the mixture of emotions I have experienced these days as Edie and Freda begin school life at our local Primary - a mixture of excitement, trepidation, relief, gratitude and wonder. I haven't felt this way for a long time, given that the last 5 years have had a particular high dose of stress and responsibility in terms of childcare, not only for day-to-day care in extraneous circumstances, but for their entire education - even their attendance at local schools required a huge amount of parental supervision and support. They are now thoroughly enjoying school life, already building positive relationships with their classmates and teachers, finding the academic tasks a breeze. They return home with hilarious tales of playground antics, the content of other children's packed lunches and the mischief they have partaken in. Freda, for instance, was persuaded to teach some Chinese to her classmates. She taught her friend Ewan to say: "I'm a bit of an idiot", which they all found very amusing.

An up-and-coming project for Freda is to prepare a talk on a famous Victorian. She's currenlty researching George Forrest, a Scot who lived and died in Yunnan after making a name for himself as a prolific botanist and plant-finder. As you can see, China still features in our daily lives.

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