Was it as good as anticipated? That moment of dropping kids off at the school gates after weeks of yet another lockdown?
My answer came 20 minutes after said drop-off, when I drove to the Ferry, on the Esplanade, to celebrate by sitting on a bench for a few moments in the glorious sunshine without anyone asking me for a snack/drink/spillage clean-up/weird question.
On the bench beside me was a woman with a similarly glaikit (another great Scots word) but happy expression to my own.
I smiled and hazarded a guess: “Just dropped off the wee ones too?”
She nodded and laughed and said she only wished the pubs were open to properly celebrate.
Every time I say something like this I feel I should qualify by saying also that I love my children dearly.
Of course we do. But we also appreciate some time alone. It’s human nature.
Good luck to other parents with kids older than P3, who are still at home.
Don’t worry (unless you actually love home schooling, cleaning incessantly, homework, printing 90 sheets of things a day, making three meals and 29 snacks, in which case, I salute you but I’m not sure we’d have too much in common in a pub) it sounds like the older pupils will follow soon.
And maybe, hopefully, those pubs soon after.
Read more from Martel here.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.