Exeat

I always enjoy learning new vocabulary. According to wikipedia, exeat means “a period of absence from a centre of learning… [used] in Britain to describe weekend leave from a boarding school”.

The kids both had special activities at school on Friday to kick off the long weekend. Sage and her classmates sold cakes for a cancer charity at the coffee morning. There was perhaps a surfeit of cakes; I managed to pick up a whole plate full at the end of the morning for the discounted price of £1.  They seemed to be having a great time and I know Sage was very proud of her own baking effort.

River played in a football tournament.  It was a fine day and everyone was most pleased to be outside in the sunshine.

I thought River played very well, especially considering that she doesn’t normally have the opportunity to play soccer.  I have to say that it irritates me that the girls don’t play soccer in England.  I can’t quite see why the school would choose to organize a tournament in a sport that half of the kids don’t play regularly.  In fact, 10 of the girls choose not to play because they didn’t feel comfortable enough.  The boys didn’t have this choice.  I would have preferred to see the tournament in field hockey, a sport played by both genders, if it isn’t possible to have girls playing soccer during P.E.

Anyway, enough ranting for now.  I am planning to speak to the head of the Lower School about my concerns at some point, though.  River was awesome.  She was very active and was in the right places at the right times and put an enormous amount of energy into the game.  Nonetheless, her team didn’t do particularly well, but they did manage to come away with a bronze medal.  She was very proud of herself!

On the way home, I was inspired to stop and take some pictures of the wheat fields where the hay has recently been baled.

I love these fields.  The golden color seems to glow in the sunshine and the regular cylindrical shape of the bales contrasts beautifully with the apparent randomness of the bales scattered around the fields.