Perfect day.

Last Thursday was a perfect day. Not perfect in the sense that everything went ‘right’ (whatever that means), but perfect in a way that makes you look at your life and feel unbelievably lucky.
 
It was sports day at my daughters’ primary school. A glorious, sunny day made even more poignant due to the fact it was my eldest’s last sports day at the school. Children were lined up on wooden benches and mini school chairs, resplendent in tee shirts baring the colours of their school house. Squinting under sunhats and wriggling excitedly in their seats as parents filtered over the playground to the field.
 
We desperately scan the rows of tiny faces to find our own offspring and trill with excitement as we spot their beaming faces. Of course, we only saw them an hour ago – frantically deciding which yellow tee-shirt was the comfiest and being asked to brush their teeth 12 times, but still.
 
Picnic rugs out, head teacher’s welcome speech done (on a speaker system that only lets you catch every third word, but you get the gist) time to start the races. Running, sack, three-legged, hoops, the timeless egg and spoon! We’re whooping and cheering like it’s London 2012 again. The rush of joy when the creature you made smashes the egg and spoon like a boss. The thrill of finding out which house has won the most points.
 
It’s joyous. Simply joyous. For a moment on a school field bathed in sunshine there is nothing to touch us. All the headlines and worries, the annoyances and fears, disappear. Even the occasional work email is dismissed. It can wait. We could be any set of parents in any town from any point in the last 30 years. The smiles, the cheers, the warmth and the fun outweigh, just for an hour or two, anything that lies beyond the school gates.
 
We wave goodbye to our little ones as though they are setting off on an Atlantic voyage, rather than knowing we’ll be back at the school gates in an hour’s time to pick them up – and return to work or laundry piles knowing that just for a moment – today was a perfect day.