Sounds of the Summer

The weather is mid-summer like now, and this makes me want to sit in the garden with my tea after work instead of flopping onto the settee. I had a potter around, pulling up weeds and cutting dead stalks off the verbena, as well as pulling some of the ivy off the back wall to keep it in check, while chatting to a friendly gardener next door. Then I made a chai tea, and took my phone out to take photos. I ended up doing lots of little films of Cassie and Tiger who were enjoying the weather too, sprawling around on the decking. There were lots of birds singing, including wood pigeons cooing, which is a really summery sound. Then an icecream van went by, and a light aircraft flew over. We couldn't see either, but the sounds just bring back childhood summers so well.
The week has gone quickly due to the visits and, in between, organising the TAs who have been packing while we are out, and packing myself (reading this back, I realise that it sounds as if I have popped myself into a box. I haven't. But perhaps I should.) It is inducing a slight feeling of panic in me now-how much stuff we have. Moving always makes me feel that way-I always think 'oh it's not that bad, there isn't that much stuff, we'll soon have it done'. Then, somewhere along the way, that thought becomes, 'Oh, we do have a lot of stuff, an incredible amount of it, and where on earth is it all going to go?' I made myself feel better this morning, by making some proper typed labels, with our school, age group and postcode on-for the stuff going into storage. I decided that on the boxes all the labels should be stuck on the bottom left-because that is the place none of us have scrawled notes about the contents, and because, somehow, this kind of uniformity seemed right. The TAs were mystified as to why the labels should be there, but went along with me anyway! They have been brilliant and worked really hard to get everything done. I hope they can keep up the momentum next week when we have to unpack it all again!