Sending them off to school

Not long ago, we went to the open evening for Ray’s new nursery school. She’ll be starting in September.

We weren’t there for more than an hour. The principal of the school carried out a presentation, and after this we got a chance to visit the classrooms where our daughter will spend the next year of her life.

At the presentation, I couldn’t help looking around at the other parents. Whatever their age, their social circumstances, their job status, they’ve been going through roughly the same parenting experiences as we have for the last 3-4 years. Mrs Levee overheard two couples discussing how one father had cut down his hours in work in order to spend more time with the family. “Yes” they said, “we’d love to move further out into the country, but that’d mean getting a bigger mortgage and we don’t want to get into that right now.” So we’re not alone in our quest to abandon the rat race!

Anyway, sitting there in the little assembly hall, I couldn’t help but feel excited for our little girl. She’s really looking forward to going, because (in her own words) then she’ll be a big girl!