Big and little

We decided to make the most of the last days of the summer break by escaping to the country. Our little Oxfordshire camping trip was a marvellous finale to what's been a glorious six weeks of school-free adventure. We spent just two nights there; sleeping as near as possible to under the stars, and in as near as I wanted to be to a tent (actually, a small and friendly wooden pod named Robin).

Without the usual distractions of everyday life, we couldn't help but notice how brilliantly big our children have become. However it was so wonderful when a sign of their remaining littleness popped up - reminding us that they are not all-grown-up quite yet. We simply loved the big and the little of them in this precious bubble of family time. 

For example, our big kids stayed up as late as us, chatting, playing cards and reading, but once asleep they were hilariously incapable of staying inside their sleeping bags properly and they couldn't keep the right way round on their air-beds at all. We sent them off on their own to buy fresh milk and bread, which makes them seem very grown-up, until you know that the shop was actually a tiny cabin on the camp-site with an extremely helpful and understanding shopkeeper. She'd written out a little sum showing their spending, helped them to count their coins and to check their change.

On the last morning of our holiday the pair of them strolled, hand-in-hand, a little way ahead of us on a woodland walk. As we tuned in to their conversation we realised they were discussing university options, and the subjects they might study. This was, quite frankly, far too grown-up for our liking, and we were rather relieved when the conversation gradually moved away from all that and into a full-on wizard and fairy game - much more like it.

And so, my two big-and-little children went off to school today - to a new class, and to an older year group. But they are the littlest they will ever be in there today - and that's to be noted. And definitely loved.