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It was my daughter’s first day at school today. She said she was excited, but scared. She looked grown up and tiny simultaneously. I thought I might cry and got a little emotional as she nervously prepared, but once we were there and we were dropping her off my eyes did not not get damp. Though partly because I really needed a wee but wasn’t allowed to use the school toilets because everyone is suspected to be a nonce unless they have a piece of paper to say they are not. A special piece of paper. You can’t just write “I am not a nonce” on a piece of paper and expect access to primary school toilets. Though if you try that you might be allowed to use the toilets at the police station.
Anyway maybe the full bladder distracted me a bit or maybe it was because my daughter seemed happy and confident and had lost the heart-rending vulnerability as she faced the unknown. It’s another step forwards in her life, another small step away from us. Why didn’t Neil Armstrong go with that?
It struck me as we drove to the school - I didn’t want to drive but the county rules mean that there was no place available in the school in our village (half a mile away) so instead we have to drive three miles (further today as roads were closed). Let no one say the system is crazy, but thankfully Boris Johnson will sort it out with all the pretend money he is promising with his fingers crossed - Anyway it struck me how weird it is to be on day one of your school career. It may well be fourteen or fifteen years until Phoebe leaves the school system. To be on day one is kind of incredible. So many more days of school. I will be 67 when she’s done. You know, if I am not… well, you know.
She’s only doing half days this week so we were there to pick her up again a couple of hours later and it seemed she had had a good time, though told me she couldn’t remember. Which was weird because when we’d arrived she’d pointed out the toy cash register that we’d played with on our brief visit to the classroom back in early July and then picked up one of the toys that I had bought from her with my pretend money (maybe this is the same stuff that Johnson is using). So she could remember events from two months ago with incredible clarity, but not anything that had just happened.
I didn’t trick for it mate.
All the nerves were gone. There will be challenges and tears and triumphs to come but that first a tiny step has been taken in shiny, sensible shoes.
