...but I get up again

It's been a mixed day so far. It didn't get off to the best of starts when I got out of bed to answer the door at about 7am and promptly fell straight over. I managed to get myself up and to the door, but I have now got an enormous bruise on my backside and was a bit shaken up. This isn't funny any more.

Things quickly looked up, as they often do on a Wednesday morning, when I went to the Primary school to do my usual reading hour with the pupils there. I haven't been for a month or so, thanks to our trip to Canada and then the Easter holidays, but the Summer term started on Monday and I was looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I think the oldest of the class has just turned seven, so they're at a good age where their reading is coming along nicely and where they are still generally pretty happy and enthusiastic about being in school. I spent my usual happy hour listening to three of them as they read me stories about Floppy, Biff, Chip and the rest of the gang. It's another beautiful sunny day in Nottingham, and my reading with Lauren was interrupted when the teacher took us all out to the courtyard in the middle of the school to have a look at the ducklings that have just hatched out next to the little pond they have there. Because we were walking at the back of the line, and because she was worried about stepping on a duckling, Lauren insisted on holding my hand all the way to the courtyard. I felt a touch awkward of course, and not entirely sure if this was 'allowed', but to Lauren it was the most natural thing in the world, so I was happy just to go with the flow. We then spent a happy ten minutes or so admiring the eleven fluffy ducklings as they podded around under the watchful eye of their parents, and then we wandered back to the classroom, again holding hands all the way back, and we finished off our book about the clever chick who outsmarts a fox. When I left the school, I was feeling a whole lot better.

Work is always a bit of a comedown from that, but that hour is usually enough to make me feel like I achieve something worthwhile on a Wednesday.