Holiday time;
The six weeks of summer holiday started over a week ago now and I still haven't written about it.
The first week of the holidays was a week to get some jobs done round the house (including the famous gluing of the garage) and having a seeming never ending stream of tradesmen come into the house: decorator, joiner, roofer, BT, various couriers, Oven cleaning people, Washing Machine man, Garage people - who pick up the car, service it and bring it back - local service is a great thing.
The one major difference this year to my summer holiday is the homework:
One problem of having a job I'm really loving is the desire to get it done. One problem of having a job involving computers is that I don't really need to be on site to do work. It used to be easy when I worked in secondary schools as a science techy - you can hardly take the chemicals home now can you?
But being an ICT techy means most of my work can be easily carted onto a memory stick and brought home with me. Which is precisely what I've done. Poo.
So from next week I'll be doing regular amounts of homework from school.
This will, of course, be on top of doing the reviews and the weblog.
Happy Holidays.
Summer holidays are a strange time for me. Working in schools for over ten years means I'm very used to having this long chunk of holiday time free to do stuff. And before having Molly, it meant that every summer I'd take on some project or other, whether it was learning my new computer inside and out, trying to write a novel, fixing up the house or many, many other things.
Possibly my favourite summer for me doing stuff was 1996. We got the keys to the house in Birmingham at the end of July. We eventually properly moved in sometime after that.
The intervening weeks were spent with me just doing it up, cleaning everywhere, painting everywhere, generally making it our house.
And throughout it all, the little portable TV followed me around, on increasingly long and dangerous daisy-chained extension leads. The Atlanta Olympics were on at exactly the right time of summer and the right time of day. I seem to remember watching nothing but the Olympics for weeks. Wonderful.
Even once that little bundle of joy appeared in my life, summer holidays were still special. It meant they were suddenly filled with more than just projects, more than just me. But instead were full of Molly and Daddy days.
Still, being a sensible daddy and having a nursery available that we were paying for anyway I always took advantage and made sure I got some time for myself as well.
The desire to have time for myself is incredibly important. I'm stupidly protective of my own space and my own time, and that even extends itself into my life at home. So every summer I ended up with time on my hands, and every summer I filled it with loads of stuff to do.
Of course, trying to explain the desperate desire for a little me time is difficult, the need to explain it and not come across as a selfish jerk is quite strong. But I'll resist the desire to make lots of excuses and just leave it as that: I need time for me.
When nursery ended and my little girl got into school properly it left us with the difficult decision as to what on Earth we were going to do for the summer holidays now. And that's when we discovered King's Camp. A perfect solution to the problem of giving Molly a great time socialising with other children and giving me a little time to myself.
But this year is different. This year it's me and Molly. A Molly and Daddy summer. No nursery, no Kings Camp. Just the pair of us from 7(ish)am to 5pm when Louise comes home for 4 of the 6 weeks. It's all three of us for the two weeks of Louise's holiday.
So far, one week in, it's all going well. We're still best buds and enjoying our time.
I'm sure that we'll have fallings out a plenty. But I think we'll be having a very cool holiday.
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