It’s the beginning of the Summer Holidays – as the schools empty, the bookshop fills with the sounds of laughter and chatter.
As a kid, the school summer holidays seemed to last for ever. Those 6 weeks, stretching off into the distance, full of expectation – bike rides out into the sticks, fishing trips to the local ponds, football in the park, camping in the garden, weekends at grandparents and the inevitable trip to Cornwall. Not only were the weeks endless, but the days too – off out straight after breakfast and not back until either the light or the energy had expired. Every minute of every hour of every day was crammed with things to be done – trying to remember it all for the ‘What I did in my Summer Holiday’ project when we got back to school was always going to be a problem.
Despite the flying time of adulthood, this summer is feeling a little like those of my childhood – the dry, warm weather has made the fields much more golden, balmy evenings sitting in the garden make the days seem a little longer, hardly a drop of rain for what seems like weeks on end. Perhaps for us, the most notable thing of all: as the schools empty, the bookshop fills with the sounds of laughter and chatter – the summer holidays are as much a part of the development of young minds as any of the days spent in the classroom. But don’t tell the kids – they get 3 months off in Greece and Portugal!
Moonlight, Summer Moonlight by Emily Jane Brontë
’Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,
But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.
And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head.
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