Already Thinking About Half Term

Half term is in eleven days. I have been thinking about it for three weeks.

Not consciously — I'm not sitting down and planning it. But in the way that my mind, when given a quiet moment on the commute or in the shower or in the pause between one task and the next, moves automatically toward the upcoming logistical problem and begins sorting it.

Half term is an upcoming logistical problem. A week with no school in it, which means a week where the children need to be somewhere, or managed, or supervised, or entertained, or — the preferred outcome — occupied in a way that requires minimal crisis management.

He knows half term is coming. He said so this morning. He is aware of it in the way you're aware of weather: it's coming, it will require a coat, the details will resolve themselves when they need to.

I am aware of it in the way that a project manager is aware of a deadline: everything that needs to happen before then, needs to happen before then, and someone needs to know what that list contains.

I've been trying to hand more of the pre-planning over. Not the tasks — the thinking ahead. The half-term plan this year is his to propose, mine to consult on.

He has eleven days.