Round 2
The final days of the summer term in school is a challenge, always. The amount of change it signifies can be quite draining: staff and children leaving, staff and children joining, new school development plans, new roles and the general upheaval of trying to tie up loose ends before the new academic year swings into action.
As a naturally disorganised person, this ‘getting ready for September’ period is a lifeline. A chance to get ‘me muck together’. It was the final weekend before we broke up when I perused through my laptop, clearing out well-meant but often empty folders - hopefully (and somewhat precisely) named, ‘Learning walk reflections - Autumn 2’ or ‘Spring 1 - shared revision approaches’. It is abundantly clear this filing mechanism just isn’t my bag: this fact was emphasised when I opened the folder titled, ‘Maths observations’ and stumbled across a half-written ‘blog entry’, typed following on from my return from India. It had never been completed and I am not overly sure of its purpose.
As the parents and children stream in through the various gated entrances, I take my usual spot on the walled playground: just out of the shade so I can catch the autumnal morning sun, I stand just to the side of the thoroughfare as not to become a barrier to the swarms of bodies and electric scooters piling in. Hands in my coat pocket, I carry out my meet and greet:
“Morning!”
“Hi!”
“Hello, how are you?” And repeat. And again. Sometimes a flurry of parents requires further variation and so I dip into the locker of lesser used greetings: a nod, a nod with a smile, a nod with a smile and raised eyebrows or if I’m being downright ‘King of Etiquette’ I may whip out the, “Lovely day, isn’t it?” It is quite amazing how quickly we can mould back into our surroundings, just less than three days earlier I was half shouting, ‘Oi!’ at any passerby, a Khasi greeting for any occasion. Simple, effective and had I been a little more daring - a lovely addition to use on this sunny Monday morning.
Reading this back made me feel somewhat sad. It was the last time I had been in ‘blog mode’, something I had enjoyed writing so much back in Meghalaya and something I had hoped to continue doing. It had been a massive driver for getting me through some very long and homesick evenings. But, I reflect. Writing about welcoming parents on electric scooters just doesn’t hold the writers imagination like the jungle does and so that chapter closed.
Until now.
Because one year on I am sat in the same overpriced airport pub, cradling a lukewarm apple juice waiting for the next plane to Delhi. There has been a lot of work going on in North East India in the last year so Tom and I are going back to see the LBQ progress in action.
Our bags are checked in, visas scanned and the clearly knackered taxi driver didn’t physically fall asleep on the way here. What could possibly go wrong?
