The end of the Summer of Fun

Six years ago almost to the day, I took my baby daughter to school for the first time. We looked over the photos yesterday and she really did look tiny.  When she started, for the first few days, she had a "buddy" in Primary 7 who was there to show her the ropes and make sure she had people to play with at Play Time. That buddy, Carla, could now have left school, or will be going into 6th year. I hope she knows how she helped to make one little girl's first school days stress free.

Anyway, it's Anna who's now in Primary 7 and she now has her own Primary 1 girl to look after - who is, apparently, very sweet.

I can't believe she's in her last year of Primary School already. I'm glad that we took the decision to get out of England when she was born, mainly because I was determined that she was not going to go through the English education system. Starting school the term after 4, and secondary at 11 just seems way too early for me. I wanted her to have the breadth of Scottish education and not to have to narrow her choices at 15.

I'm going to find this quite an emotional year,  I think - one to treasure, but then they all are, aren't they?

Next year she goes to secondary school, her first year hit, as mine was 31 years ago, by major spending cuts. If that wasn't enough of a challenge, while her wonderful primary school knows what it's doing with the Curriculum for Excellence, it seems that the secondary sector isn't quite as clued up. That is a bit of a worry and I do hope Mike Russell gets his backside into gear and sorts it out because it'll be too late to start after the elections next May.

And as for me, today's really the first day I've had to deal with the loss of my job. The Summer has been fantastic so I haven't really missed it. My work tended to be a bit all consuming and I am going to have a fair amount of time to fill. I'll miss my colleagues and all the people I came into contact with. I think it's fair to say that although I absolutely loved my job, it wasn't that good for my health so this year is going to be about getting healthier and fitter. I'm still not anywhere close to being fully well, although I've come a long way given that this time last year I couldn't stay out of bed for a whole day. When I feel frustrated that I'm still not better, it helps to see how much progress I have, relatively speaking, made.

Anyway, I am looking forward to being able to catch up with friends, spend more time writing and blogging and try to get this tip of a house in order while Anna's at school.

I'm hoping that the Summer of Fun will give way to the Autumn of Awesome........