18-04-17 Football at Primary School

Tuesday 18th April 2017

For this our final day of school holidays my aim is to exhaust Kingsley with so much outdoor action, fresh air and sunshine that he’s asleep by 6pm and ready for the school bus tomorrow morning.

Its up through the village’s winding uphill streets I push Kingsley in his very heavy pram (though the Graco has the best storage baskets so no complaints here; in fact my upper arms are due to pushing around a 21kg kid in a 22 kg pram) to Church for a wee prayer of thanks. Next its walking around the mountains and along to a pethikī harā for our picnic, through the upper reaches of Saronītha and to the local primary school for a kick of the football. After the roaring success of an hours’ kicking I will never leave the house without some kind of ball in my handbag.

On our long way home we discover a wayward turtle and so the day’s lesson on nature conservation begins: we feed it our fruit peel and transport it to a cool, shady field where it can eat figs and drink dew from the tall grass. Kingsley pats its shell and we bid it farewell.

Its well after 4pm when we stumble home, both of us with a hunger but its Kingsley’s appetite we applaude: some lamb, spaghetti and mum’s white bean & vegetable soup. By 5pm he’s snug under his blanket watching Bob Svougarāki and by 6pm it is lights out.