A Perfect Afternoon
The rhythm of yesterday went tantrum, tantrum, tantrum, tantrum, perfect bliss. Five minute’s drive away is a river with a small perfect wetland. Willows strewing catkins all over paths. Grasses, ferns, blackberries, hawthorns in lacy bloom. Actual shiny yellow buttercups to hold under your sister’s chin to find out if she likes butter. Granted all these plants are noxious weeds, and as such, are being ruthlessly eradicated by the council and replaced with native plantings, but we are determinedly enjoying it all until it goes. And right now it looks just like a corner of a Beatrix Potter story.
We met some dear friends there. The older girls sketched flowers and each other (not because they had to, but because they think they are reincarnations of the Edwardian lady with the country diary), and the younger ones threw rocks in the river, ‘explored’ with the aid of large sticks and rolled in the new mown grass. This, for me, is what homeschooling is really about. It is about being able to seize the moment, the perfect hour of the most exquisite Spring day, and to lie in the grass and gaze at the blue sky.
And Jane and I got to sit on a reasonably comfortable log and chat, and I believe there was a period of about, oh, seven and a half minutes somewhere there when no-one wanted a drink or the car keys, or for us to look at a leaf or a ladybird or to find a pencil sharpener or anything. And because we are totally the carpe diem girls, we did nothing at all, and it was…perfect.
We met some dear friends there. The older girls sketched flowers and each other (not because they had to, but because they think they are reincarnations of the Edwardian lady with the country diary), and the younger ones threw rocks in the river, ‘explored’ with the aid of large sticks and rolled in the new mown grass. This, for me, is what homeschooling is really about. It is about being able to seize the moment, the perfect hour of the most exquisite Spring day, and to lie in the grass and gaze at the blue sky.
And Jane and I got to sit on a reasonably comfortable log and chat, and I believe there was a period of about, oh, seven and a half minutes somewhere there when no-one wanted a drink or the car keys, or for us to look at a leaf or a ladybird or to find a pencil sharpener or anything. And because we are totally the carpe diem girls, we did nothing at all, and it was…perfect.
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