Blinking and not missing it

In September 2018 I took my daughter’s happy little hand and walked her up the road to her first day at school.

Then I walked home, cranked my oven up to 250, and went about seeing how this bakery idea might pan out.

Three weeks ago I did that journey for the final time, with someone who is a lot taller, partly fuelled by all that bread we ate.

When I left primary school in 1991, we signed each other’s shirts on the last day, and then we went home for tea. I’m not sure we even remembered to ask each other which secondary school we were going to. There were no leavers’ assemblies, or proms, or parents openly weeping at the school gates, or any talk of Ends of Eras.

When I asked Mum if she was sad when I, her youngest child, left primary school, she said, ‘No, should I have been?’

In the last 30 years we have become a little hysterical about childhood milestones. The burden of expectation that you savour every Precious Moment can get a bit much tbh. Unfortunately I am a sucker for a spot of light hysteria, so I forced myself to take a few weeks off committing anything to print, to avoid writing a soaring ode to the primary school years and then feeling a bit bilious after I’d hit Publish.

So here’s my middle ground, 3 weeks into the school holidays: Somewhere more memorable than a signed shirt and Neighbours before tea, but stopping short of chiselling a headstone proclaiming the end of childhood.

It helps having been through this once before, and now having a lovely teenager in the house, and nephews who are in early adulthood, and cousins in their 30s, 40s and 50s, because I’ve spotted something: We all still like to be silly as much as the next 10 year old.

Who you are in Year 6 doesn’t vanish at the end of July; it always bubbles under your surface. Beneath my crust is a molten layer of silly formed when I was 10, broadly composed of:

• Smash Hits

• Going Live

• Erinsborough High

• James Bond, Roger Moore era

• Forever Friends merchandise; and

• Episodes of The Young Ones I watched when I wasn’t supposed to, and the warm sound of my family laughing at Blackadder after I’d gone to bed

and it resurfaces frequently. My daughter has her own layer, and so does everyone else.

Yes primary school is over for everyone in my house, but that’s ok! It’s surprised me to realise that I don’t really mind.

I can’t lift my children up anymore, and no one will ever wear a blue gingham school summer dress again. But I haven’t blinked and missed it. I’ve felt those seven years, and I think that’s because making bread slows everything down. My business has grown its roots around the children’s lives, and the shape of their days.

Each year has felt different to the last, so the story of this part of our lives feels tangible, like it has chapters that I can flick through and re-read whenever I want.

I’m just hoping it has an exciting sequel.