It’s a new school year and memories of tests failed, repeated years and thwarted ambitions waft through the air again as the leaves start to turn, the air chills and the first signs of Christmas appear on the supermarket shelves.
What did we learn from our summer break that will see us through the darkening days? That some weapons are more righteous than others? That whilst we might hope that it’s never too late to become the tennis player we always wanted to be, that in fact it is? Much too late? That our grandiose political aspirations are crumbling faster than a cup cake straight out of the oven in the Great British Bake Off?
The sound of lives cut short, the acrid smell of relationships souring, the sound of economies going pop, this is what we’re learning this summer.
It may that after the heady hazy days of summer that we cast a quizzical look at our new school pals, throw an astonished glance to the teachers in charge and run out of the school gates as fast as our little short trousered legs will carry us.
It worked for me for a while when I was about to turn five although the inevitable grip that school was to exert eventually meant I donned my cap and blazer with the best and the rest of them.
Teachers, when you’re back in that classroom, counting them in and counting them out, please save some extra time for those in front of you who are yearning to run a mile at top speed out of the classroom, down the hall and out into the road. They may have learnt far too much for their own liking over the summer and just may not be ready to soak up your phonemes and calculus.