The first time I encountered the school summer holidays as a parent I experienced that very real sense of something having gone quite, quite wrong. Like when you stumble upon an eclipse and the birds stop singing or you take a hot swig of cold tea. If there was a manager to complain to I would have called her within a second. Less! The maths of the thing simply did not add up. Six weeks without school, set against, first the paltry reality of everybody’s annual leave from work, the equivalent ratio of water to Ribena, and second, the temperaments of both adults and children, carefully balanced to withstand only (I find) fairly specific conditions.
These conditions include, but are not limited to: the presence of other people of the same age-group, sleep, time alone, culture, three meals a day, two snacks, dessert, intimacy, etc. Any deviation from the list, any absence of an element however tiny sets off a chain of storm-like chaos. This summer, daily adventure has quickly become essential, too – so far the children have gone on a “tube adventure” (get on the tube, get off again), a “pizza adventure” (order a pizza), a “boat adventure” (failed due to queue) – but the power of the word is unfortunately waning.
