So, I am a day behind already!  I desperately wanted to write yesterday but I ran out of time; at 11.48pm my husband came through as I was writing up the Hockey Club minutes after planning lessons, responding to emails from students and colleagues and checking in on Facebook.

I thought I was doing OK when I looked at the clock at 10pm but then all of a sudden it was nearly midnight.  Where does time go to?

Like sand through a timer it seems to go quite slowly at first and then, “Whoosh!” it is gone, all too soon.   Holidays are like that too, aren’t they?  The first weeks of the summer holidays stretch out in front of you.  Delicious days of waking when you want to, relaxing breakfasts and lazy days catching up on reading that you just don’t have time to do in term time.  Days at the beach, leisurely catch ups and coffees with friends, evening barbecues and drinks in the garden enjoying the coolness of the evening as the sun goes down.  And then, before you know it, you are half way through and the count down just gets faster. The days slip away and there is a hint of panic as you realise that you actually haven’t done any of the things you said all term that you’d so in the holidays!  Sort out the photos, tidy the garage, organise someone to clean the roof, hang the pictures you got last Christmas, write letters and send cards to friends who don’t have internet, plan some lessons!

This summer I went to Costa Rica and Nicaragua with a group of students.  We spent Christmas in the rainforest and New Year on the beach with the local community with whom we were working.  It was interesting to note how the girls coped with the time we spent there.  Four weeks for them seemed interminable, especially those who were homesick. Odd, because they had spent eighteen months of preparation excitedly counting down to their adventure.  As soon as we arrived they spent four weeks counting down to going home!  It is not  that they didn’t enjoy themselves and throw themselves into the experience and make the most of it, because they did. But, as they explained to me, they just missed their families and were looking forward to seeing them again!  I didn’t get it!  But then it wasn’t the first time away from home for me.  Time went far too fast and there just wasn’t enough time to do and see everything I wanted.

Three days this week I have walked 15km training for the Oxfam Trailwalker.  (probably why I haven’t any time!) Time is strange then too.  In contrast to holidays, the first half of the walk seems to go by very fast but the second half seems to go on for ever!  My legs are weary and my feet hurt.  Every step is painful. If you let yourself think about it.  Fortunately we are four “50-something” women and we know how to talk!  We keep each other going and time passes more quickly.

And now my 28 minutes are up.  Strangely the Pink Floyd song “Time” from the album “Dark Side of the Moon” is playing as I finish!  A song about how time slips by fast without us really noticing before it is too late.  I just looked at the Wikipedia info about it and it suggests there that Roger Walters realised when he was 28 that he was no longer preparing for life, he was in the middle of it!  Not sure of the veracity of that but it seems apt given that I am writing for 28 minutes for 28 days.

Image: https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8088/8541529818_13a97735fb_h.jpg